


The Upside of Down

by roseclaw



Category: CSI: Miami, Doctor Who, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Torchwood
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:38:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseclaw/pseuds/roseclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As always, Horatio knew something that he wasn't sharing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Upside of Down

**Fandom**: CSI: Miami/Doctor Who/Torchwood/Stargate (Atlantis and SG-1)  
**Pairing**: Eric/Ryan + Natalia, Jack/Everyone (one-sided), Jack/Ianto, Ryan/Aaron, and mentions of Eric/Natalia and Carson/Laura  
**Rating**: hard R - for gore and sex (not together)  
**Word Count**: ~ 23,000  
**Spoilers**: No recent spoilers, but there are spoilers for the series three finale of Doctor Who and series one finale of Torchwood, season four of CSI: Miami especially "Urban Hellraisers," "Nailed," "Silencer," "Skeletons," and season five "Curse of the Coffin" and season two of SGA especially "Duet" and "Critical Mass" (blink and you'll miss) and season three "The Return," and finally season five of SG-1 "Wormhole X-Treme!," "Last Stand," "48 Hours," season nine "Off the Grid," and "Domination" and "200" from season 10… as well as any episodes where Daniel Jackson decided not to be Ascended anymore. And the 2006 ALE Playoffs. Um… yeah.  
**Warnings**: This fic contains slash, het, a sorta-threesome, sorta voyeurism (off page), unrequited lust, crass language, sexual content, plausible science, implausible science (you'll know the difference, trust me), aliens, and _hardcore crack_.   
**Author's Note**: **Please read…or at least skim.** This fic is told from the point of view of Ryan Wolfe from CSI; therefore, all other fandoms are explained for his benefit, and familiarity with the other fandoms is not required.

This fic diverges from CSI canon after "Skeletons" and takes place in the summer of 2006. This is consistent with SGA's "The Return" and an AU for the DW/TW overlap. Pretend that the overlap occurred in 2006 not 2007. Instead of heading to the end of the universe, the TARDIS ended up in present day Miami. Same difference. It wanted some place to dump Jack so he wouldn't want to hitch another ride. Forget about season six of CSI: in an attempt to make Boa Vista less lame, in this fic she is a decent shot and learned how to do so after her husband was put in jail. This is my personal canon.

Why it's going there: Um, the intro to both CSI: Miami and Torchwood is a helicopter shot over the bay into the city. My imagination took over from there.

Beta-ed by the ever amazing , so the remaining errors are my own because I couldn't stop tinkering with this fic.  
This is a [longnose gar](http://www.cnr.vt.edu/efish/families/images/jpegs/longnose.jpg).  
Additional notes are made at the end as not to spoil too much of the fic. As for the crack: CSI: Miami is no longer fun, so I made it fun.  
**Disclaimer**: CSI belongs to CBS and Zuiker, Doctor Who and Torchwood belong to RT Davies and BBC, and SGA and SG-1 belong to Wright and SciFi. Pretty much if you recognize something that has been on television, it's not mine.  
**Disclaimer 2**: I do not condone the use of any conjugation of the verb "to get" in place of any conjugation of the verb "to be."  
**Summary**: As always, Horatio knew something that he wasn't sharing.

-

The Upside of Down and other Wiggly-Wobbly, Timey-Whimey Lessons Learned While Traveling Space and Time Imparted to Ryan Wolfe at a Strange Part of His Life

-

Natalia's breasts were staring at him, because it certainly wasn't the other way around. They were _right there_. Very hard to miss. There should be rules against wielding such things. Granted, she probably _did_ have a concealed weapons permit - but those were _not_ concealed! At the very least, she should have violated whatever dress code policy the MDPD had.

Ryan couldn't tell if Natalia's breasts were going to attack him at any moment or if they were beckoning him in. This wouldn't be happening if Maxine hadn't been in court.

She looked up from her dissecting scope with a smile. One of those "I just broke the case" smiles - not one of those "come touch my breasts" smiles.

"What'da ya got?" Ryan asked, cocking his head to the right.

"The flies found on the victim were _Drosophila_, but they weren't wildtype, which is consistent with the triethylamine and ethanol Aaron found."

"Drunk, mutant fruit flies?" Ryan asked incredulously.

"It's FlyNap," Natalia explained with an indulgent smile.

"So it's the university lab tech," Ryan concluded. That made sense. The tech had motive and a shaky alibi.

"It appears that way," Natalia said with a nod and a small smile.

"I'll let H know." Ryan nodded and ducked out of the DNA lab before Natalia's breasts made him do something stupid.

"Ryan!" Natalia called after him.

Ryan stopped, took a deep breath, sighed it out, and returned to the DNA lab.

"When we're done with this shift, would you like to grab a drink?" she asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said slowly.

"Ryan, you're staring at my breasts," she pointed out gently.

He cleared his throat and tore his gaze away. "Right. Sorry."

"Are you sure that you don't want to?"

"Stare?" he choked out in surprise.

"Join me for a drink," she corrected with an indulgent smile.

"Natalia," he sighed, shaking his head. "I don't think Eric would - "

"It'll be fine," she insisted.

Ryan frowned. "I don't - "

"Ryan, it'll be fine," she insisted again.

He bowed his head and looked up at her through his eyelashes. "Are you sure?" It was one thing to lust, but it was another thing entirely to be given permission, however backwards it may be.

"Yeah. It's fine," she repeated slowly.

"Because if it's not - "

"It's fine. Now go tell Horatio that I broke the case."

"Yes, ma'am." Ryan scuttled away.

****

: : :

Ryan found Horatio in the hallway in front of the trace lab talking to Eric. Of course.

"Hey, H, Boa Vista just broke the case," Ryan announced.

Eric's phone rang. He nodded to Horatio and Ryan as he turned away to answer.

"You were saying, Mr. Wolfe?" Horatio said.

"Boa Vista found a mutant fruit fly as well as FlyNap on the victim: the lab tech did it."

Horatio folded his sunglasses. "Good work."

"She's still in the interrogation room - " Ryan looked away from Horatio and noticed Eric giving him a thoughtful look, his ear still attached to his phone. "What?"

Eric shook his head.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "She's still in the interrogation room, so I'm going to try to get a written confession out of her."

"Don't bother," Eric interjected. "Calleigh's already on it."

"Oh," Ryan said quietly.

"See you after shift," Eric said and walked away.

Okay, Eric may have been part of the deal with Natalia, but that didn't mean he had to be present at the same time Ryan was.

Ryan suppressed a groan.

****

: : :

"Dude, that girl's been staring at you since you walked in the door," Eric whispered into Ryan's ear.

Ryan shivered involuntarily. He followed Eric's gaze to a very attractive girl, who seemed out of place amongst the other patrons. For one, she wore long pants and a shirt that didn't even show a hint of cleavage.

"I think she should know that we're not sharing you," Natalia whispered into Ryan's other ear.

He had learned a lot in the previous hour. First and foremost: his coworkers were kinky sons of bitches… well, Eric was. Natalia was a kinky bitch. Thank God they were in a dark and somewhat secluded corner.

An hour ago, Natalia had all but crawled into his lap, and Eric was desperately trying to do the same. Eric, he had expected that kind of openness with, not that he had imagined it much, but Eric was the clubbing type. That's close enough to public sex… clothed. But Natalia, Ryan had always thought that she was reserved in public.

Ryan couldn't even blame the alcohol, because he hadn't had any. He was drinking Coke: after a long but rewarding shift, he needed caffeine. Especially if the night was headed where he thought it was headed.

Natalia had had one glass of something green called alligator something. Ryan could barely remember the periodic table at this point let alone what weird, girly drink she had ordered, but she had one. One. And Eric had had a mojito. One.

They were just kinky bastards. Natalia's clever tongue was in his ear, and two of Eric's fingers were under his shirt and sliding back and forth over his iliac crest while his thumb tried to hook over the waistline of Ryan's pants.

The only problem was that Ryan was not into the public sex thing. He didn't even go clubbing. Oh, he hit the bars, just not the clubs. He was too self-conscious and never really saw the appeal. But he was responding very predictably to having two intoxicating people physically worship his body. It did wonders for his ego.

Natalia's fingers wound around Eric's, and she pushed his hand from Ryan's hip to the junction of his legs.

Ryan grunted softly, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

When he could focus again, he saw the girl approaching him.

Natalia - _Natalia!_ \- growled at her.

"Whoa!" the girl said and held up her hands in surrender. "I just wanted to say 'thank you' to Mr. Wolfe."

Ryan frowned. He had never seen this girl before in his life. She had a British accent, and he would have remembered someone as curvy as her. She looked like Alexx… only twenty years younger and one hundred percent more British.

"If either you or Mr. Delko are ever in London, please look me up." She looked the three of them up and down. "I'll let you three carry on with your night, then."

She walked away without giving her name. When she reached the door, a man joined her to escort her out.

"Let's go back to my place," Natalia suggested before Ryan could ask what the hell had just happened.

****

: : :

There was a blue box in the middle of the crime scene. A crime scene in the 'Glades. And no one else had appeared noticed the box. Ryan figured that a giant, blue box behind the yellow police tape was something noticeable: he had seen it right away. After last night, Ryan was apprehensive to ask Eric if he saw something that didn't belong outside of 1950 Britain. Of course, Ryan was apprehensive to ask Eric anything after last night. Natalia too, but Ryan wasn't working a case with Natalia - he was working one with Eric.

Ryan frowned and did what he always did at crime scenes: he processed it, blue box and all.

"Ryan, what are you doing?" Eric asked from directly behind him.

Ryan jumped and reined in his anxiety along with his fight or flight reflex and the flood of memories of the night before that should never resurface at all, let alone when he's at work, damn it! "I'm processing the scene," he responded coolly.

"You're taking pictures of nothing," Eric pointed out in a voice that clearly indicated that he was going through his mental list of all psychiatrists he had ever made contact with and deciding which one Ryan was less apt to kill. "Is it - is it your eye?"

"No." Ryan gave Eric a bland look. "There's always something. What do you have?"

"A few casings, 9 mill. Calleigh will be able to tell us if they match the ones in the vic. And a gar head."

"Seriously? A gar head? What about the rest of it?" Ryan wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"That's for us to figure out. What do you have?" Eric pointed to a large pile of evidence envelopes that had accumulated next to Ryan's kit.

"A lot of weird things." Ryan didn't want to share more than that. They were really weird things.

Eric waited patiently for Ryan to formulate the correct wording.

"I, uh, collected samples from thirty-odd blood spatters, but they were coagulating at different rates. I also found this." Ryan held up a bag with a gun that belonged on the set of a SciFi movie. "Calleigh's going to have her work cut out for her."

Eric nodded and returned to collecting evidence.

Ryan sighed and did likewise, but he waited until Eric's back was turned before he dusted for fingerprints on the door of the police call box, as the sign on the front proclaimed. He was eventually able to lift a few smudges and a couple partials. He was highly aware of Frank and the patrol cops staring at him like he had lost his mind.

Feeling courageous, Ryan tested the door to see if it was locked. He frowned at it when it wasn't. Drawing his gun, he opened the door and barged in.

A man in a pinstripe suit stared back at him as confused as Ryan was. This was not what he expected when he opened the door. It was a lot bigger on the inside.

"Miami-Dade PD!" Ryan announced. "Hands where I can see them!"

The man stared at him, and then demanded, "What are you doing in my ship?"

Ryan catalogued the British accent, which bizarrely fit the 1950's British exterior of the box, and he edged closer to the man, his gun leading the way. "I said: hands where I can see them!"

The man opened his arms. "How did you get in here?"

"I opened the door," Ryan indulged.

"You saw my TARDIS? That's impossible. Well, not impossible - but highly improbable."

Ryan stood directly in front of the man, gun aimed at his chest. With his free hand, Ryan frisked the man. He found no weapon, but he did find a weird metal rod. He inspected it carefully around the glove he picked it up with.

"That is a sonic screwdriver." The man popped his lips and bounced on his heels. "There's no need to be waving a gun around."

"You're in the middle of a crime scene," Ryan explained, trying desperately to keep his wits about him. This was probably karma for messing around with coworkers. He had said himself that office relationships never worked. Of course, he hadn't anticipated this. Whatever _this_ was.

"Right. Terribly sorry about that." This man didn't speak: he chirped. "I'll be out of your way in a jiff."

"No," Ryan said stonily. "You're coming back to the station for questioning. Hands behind your back."

The man gave an exaggerated frown as Ryan snapped handcuffs on him. Ryan then led him out of the police call box.

"Ryan! Where the hell were you?" Eric demanded, crowding Ryan's space. "Who the hell is that?"

"Possible suspect and witness," Ryan said brusquely.

"I'm the Doctor. Hello." The man looked as if he were trying to wave and finding it difficult to do so while his hands were cuffed behind his back.

"Hey, Frank!" Ryan called. "Take this guy back to the station, will you?"

Frank nodded. "Sure thing, Wolfe. I'll see if I can get some answers from him."

The man in cuffs, the self-proclaimed Doctor, froze. "Wolf? As in Bad Wolf?"

"CSI Ryan Wolfe," Ryan grunted and handed the man off to Frank. "We'll see you later, Frank."

Eric strode up behind Ryan. "Where did you find him?"

Ryan scratched at his eyebrow with his thumb nail. "You'd never believe me. I also found this on him." He showed Eric the instrument confiscated from the Doctor. "Have you ever seen anything like this? He said it was a 'sonic screwdriver.'"

"A sonic screwdriver?"

"He - he called himself the Doctor." Ryan crossed his arms over his chest and nodded to the Doctor being shoved into a patrol car.

"Do you think we're going to need a shrink for him?" Eric asked pensively.

"I'd say he has a really good shot at an insanity plea, yeah." Ryan uncrossed his arms.

"So where _did_ you find him?" Eric narrows his eyes at Ryan.

"Uh, you'll read it in my report." Ryan fought the urge to rub the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Wolfe, I thought we had moved past all - "

"Delko, trust me. You wouldn't believe me." Ryan crossed his arms over his chest again.

"Try me," Eric challenged, working his jaw.

"Okay." Ryan nodded and pursed his lips. "He was in a big, blue box that only I can see in the middle of the crime scene. 'The Doctor' called it a 'tardis.'"

Eric snorted out a laugh.

Ryan glared up at him through his eyelashes.

"No, really. Where did you find him?"

Ryan cocked his head to the side and continued to glare.

"What? You're serious?" Eric turned so that he was face to face with Ryan.

Ryan rolled his head to the other side.

"Does this have to do with your eye?" Eric asked, not unkindly.

"No," Ryan said quickly with a growl.

"Are y- "

"If you ask me if I'm sure, I - If I'm seeing things, then were did that man come from?" Ryan vaguely gestured to the police call box.

"You tell me." Eric worked his jaw and narrowed his eyes accusingly.

Ryan scoffed. "Come with me."

Before Eric could protest, Ryan grabbed his hand and yanked him in the direction of the police call box, coming to a stop in front of its door.

"There's still nothing here, Ryan." Eric used that superior tone that made Ryan want to do things to him. All of them involved physical contact, but most of them did not involve straight-out violence.

Ryan rolled his eyes, opened the door, and pushed Eric inside.

"Whoa." Eric's mouth dropped open as he looked up a short ramp at God knows what.

"It's not what I expected either."

"This is surreal." Eric was openly gawking at the, for lack of a better word, alien interior of the box.

"You ready to talk to this doctor?"

Eric nodded absently, still taking in the interior of something he hadn't been able to see the exterior of.

****

: : :

"Well, Mr. Doctor, what were you doing in the middle of a crime scene?" Ryan asked as he sat down across from the Doctor in one of the interrogation rooms. Eric stood directly beside him. Frank let Ryan and Eric take their turn with the Doctor, because he was unable to make heads or tails of what the Doctor was saying. Frank had even given his wry chuckle, which Ryan always took as a bad sign.

"No mister, just Doctor." Did everything this man said have to be so jovial?

"Okay, Doctor, what were you doing in the middle of a crime scene?" Ryan cocked his head to the left.

"That's where my TARDIS landed." The Doctor looked to Ryan curiously.

"Your ship? You call it a tardis?" Ryan decided that humoring him would give him the best results.

"Yes. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space," the Doctor stated proudly.

Ryan held out an image of the sonic screwdriver he had confiscated earlier. "And what is this?"

"That would be my sonic screwdriver." The Doctor tapped on the image of his sonic screwdriver. "My last one failed me on my last trip to the moon, but I was able to acquire a new one. It's very handy, don't you think?"

"What does it do?" Eric asked, trying to hide his curiosity.

"Whatever I program it to do." The Doctor shrugged.

"Could it kill a man? This man." Eric asked, sliding a photo of the victim over to the Doctor.

"No, it couldn't, and this man isn't dead."

"This man in certainly dead, Doctor. The cause of death was a bullet to the temporal lobe," Ryan said, rolling his head to the right and leaning back in his chair.

"Nope, not dead," the Doctor maintained.

"Why do you insist that this man is alive?"

"He's standing directly behind you." The Doctor pointed.

Ryan rolled his eyes. Gunshot victims, especially those who had taken a bullet to the head, did not just walk off the post. Okay, there was that one time, but that was before Ryan's time as a CSI, and it had been a car crash. He looked anyway to humor the Doctor.

"Eric." Ryan's hated that his voice wavered. "The vic is watching us - and very much alive."

Ryan's cell phone went off.

"Wolfe," he answered curtly.

"Baby, there are some things we need to discuss about the vic in your and Eric's case," Alexx said carefully.

"Alexx, I think we already know," Ryan said as equally as carefully as he watched the victim suspiciously through the glass wall.

"Do you know that I had already drained him on the post?"

"No," Ryan said slowly. "I did not. So this is not a paramedic mistake?"

"No. There was no bleeding when I made my incision, and as I said, I had already drained him of approximately eight pints of blood. I have no explanation, and Horatio is going to want to get involved."

As if on cue, Horatio materialized next to the victim in that intuitive Horatio way that Ryan was desperately trying to understand so he could master it himself.

"H is already with him." Horatio escorted the vic to another interrogation room.

"And watch out for that man. When he's not going on about strange things, he's flirting aggressively."

"Thanks, Alexx," Ryan sighed.

"No problem, baby. But when you figure this out, I want to know."

"I promise you'll be the first one I tell."

"Thanks."

As soon as Ryan hung up, he said to Eric, "Alexx had already drained him."

"What? Does that make him a zombie or something?"

"Naw," the Doctor drawled. "He's not the undead: he's the perpetually alive."

"How do you know this man?" Eric asked.

"He likes to be called Captain Jack Harkness," the Doctor said, effectively dodging the question.

"And his real name?" Eric prompted.

"You know, he never told me his real name," the Doctor frowned. "I think he's forgotten it."

"What makes you say that?" Ryan asked.

"He's old. Well, not as old as me, but he's still old. Have you found Martha yet?" Ryan was going to end up with whiplash if this quick change in subjects kept on occurring.

"Martha?"

"Yeah. Martha Jones. Pretty girl, going to medical school. Brilliant thinker. Asks a lot of questions." Ryan absently wondered if the Doctor ever spoke in complete sentences instead of fragments.

"Is she missing?" Ryan asked suspiciously.

"Oh yes, I should say so. She was with Jack."

"Can you give us a description?" Ryan asked. The man may be insane, but if he was correct about there being a missing girl out there, it was up to Ryan and Eric to find her.

"Uh, sure. She's tall, dark, and human," the Doctor said confidently.

Ryan turned to Eric. "We can't put human on dispatch."

"Sure you can. That rules out all the nonhumans." They were definitely going to need a shrink for this man.

Ryan placed his hands on his hips and pursed his lips. "You stay here, Doc. We're going to check on your friend Jack."

"Do you think I could have my sonic screwdriver back? I love my sonic screwdriver."

"No," Eric said.

****

: : :

"And you don't even want to hear about the time with the twin acrobats." Jack leaned back in his chair and grinned.

"You're right, Captain Harkness," Horatio said patiently. Ryan bit his lip to keep from smiling. Horatio had a way of cutting down smartasses with his own personal brand of smartass remarks. "Would you care to explain to me how you walked out of my morgue?"

Captain Harkness's grin wilted.

"You gave my ME quite the scare."

Captain Harkness didn't respond.

"We were unable to locate any identification papers on your person or in your bag," Horatio said calmly.

"I do have identification papers." Captain Harkness reached inside of his greatcoat and presented the men with a slip of paper.

Ryan inspected it and turned red. "Is this a joke?" he choked out. It read that Captain Harkness was maybe single depending on what year it was, but he was in an open relationship regardless and worked out regularly and would love to give Ryan a workout as well. And it also read that Ryan looked really good in a suit.

Horatio peered over his shoulder. "That paper is blank, Captain Harkness."

Ryan cleared his throat and let Horatio run with it.

Captain Harkness frowned at Horatio before winking at Ryan. Eric frowned and took the paper from Ryan to inspect it himself. He gave Ryan a panicked look before handing the paper back to Jack.

Captain Harkness looked at it with satisfaction. "Too bad. It would have been fun."

After a heavy pause, Ryan asked, "Do you know a Martha Jones?"

Captain Harkness frowned. "There was a girl with the Doctor. She was gorgeous. Like your medical examiner only younger - same bone structure. She's university aged."

"You didn't know her personally?"

"She gave me CPR." Captain Harkness waggled his eyebrows.

"And then what happened?" Eric prompted.

"I was shot," Captain Harkness said casually with a shrug.

"How convenient," Horatio said in a deadpan.

"Not really. I hate it when that happens."

"It happens to you often?" Eric asked.

"More than I'd like, yeah."

"Do you recognize this object?" Ryan held up the image of the sonic screwdriver.

Horatio peered at it with an expression Ryan had come to recognize as his "must protect the victim" face.

"Yeah," Captain Harkness said. "That's the Doctor's sonic screwdriver."

"Are you friends with the Doctor?" Ryan asked.

"As much as anyone could ever be friends with him," Captain Harkness said with a shrug, but didn't give any more information.

Horatio peered at Captain Harkness with a coy expression and tilt of his head that he usually used with murderers and rapists.

"What were the three of you doing in the middle of the Everglades, Captain Harkness?" Eric asked, his voice biting into the name.

"That's where the TARDIS landed," Captain Harkness said nonchalantly.

"And where did it take off from?" Ryan asked.

"Cardiff." Captain Harkness's nonchalant attitude bothered Ryan, making his skin itch.

"Cardiff? You flew from Wales to Florida in a box?" Ryan asked incredulously.

"We didn't fly, no. You saw the Doctor's TARDIS? The chameleon circuit should have - "

"H, their stories line up. Let's get them both in one place so we can locate this missing person," Eric suggested.

"Let's do that, Eric."

"Ryan. Come with me," Eric said.

Ryan looked offended and on the verge of saying no.

"Please," Eric added.

Ryan frowned and followed him out of the room.

"What, Delko?" Ryan demanded.

Eric grabbed Ryan's wrist and leaned over to hiss into his ear, "The paper said that you wanted a repeat of last night."

Ryan swallowed hard.

"It also said that next time you'd like to dominate, you have a sensitive spot directly behind your left ear, and your favorite position is - "

"Delko," Ryan interrupted tersely. "Let's discuss this _after_ we've found our missing girl."

Eric pulled back and noticed that Captain Harkness was grinning at them. He shook his head and released Ryan's wrist.

Ryan rejoined Horatio and Captain Harkness while Eric went to grab the Doctor.

Horatio examined Ryan carefully with that same damn coy expression, and Ryan responded with a defiant glare.

"Captain Harkness, what is that paper?" Ryan demanded, leaning over the table with his forearms bracing him.

"_That_, Mr. Wolfe, is psychic paper," Horatio explained without even batting an eye. How did that man know everything no matter how obscure? And what the hell was psychic paper?

"You have to be careful not to let your mind slip," Captain Harkness said haughtily. "It said you were spoken for."

Before Ryan could respond, the Doctor, Eric, and the accompanying officer entered the room.

"Doctor," Captain Harkness said coldly.

"Jack," the Doctor returned just as coldly.

"Boys," Horatio said. "You are going to help us." Eric and Ryan flanked Horatio and glared at the two men.

"Right. Martha Jones." The Doctor popped his lips. "From the beginning. I met her… well, she met me first. I met her in her London hospital later. She's a bright one, catches on to anything - "

"Doctor," Horatio said. "Just what led to Martha's disappearance, please."

"Start from Cardiff," Eric prompted.

"Right. We made a fuel stop in Cardiff. Then the TARDIS reacted to Jack, taking us here. Martha went out to check our location. She found Jack - "

"And administered CPR," Captain Harkness interrupted suggestively.

"Oh, don't you start," the Doctor warned with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

"I was just - "

"With you, Jack, it's never just."

"Gentlemen," Horatio interjected pointedly.

"There were gun shots. She was gone, and Jack was dead."

"You were dead, Captain Harkness?" Horatio asked.

"Yeah. I was shot through the head." Ryan felt vaguely faint from - and slightly overwhelmed by - Captain Harkness's offhanded admission.

"During or after Miss Jones administered CPR?" Eric asked.

"She was pulled off of me. I couldn't see a face. His back was to the sun, and there were at least two more of them. Then he shot me."

"So you were alive when she was taken," Horatio reiterated.

Captain Harkness gave Horatio a bland look.

"Captain Harkness, why did Miss Jones administer CPR?" Ryan asked. It didn't make sense that he would be shot _after_ the CPR. There had to have been some confrontation beforehand.

"Traveling through the Time Vortex without a capsule is potentially deadly," Captain Harkness explained nonchalantly.

And when was Horatio going to call in the psychiatrist?

"You died twice today?" Ryan blurted out.

"Three times," Captain Harkness corrected. "And if you want to be technical, I came back four times in my day."

"Your day?" Eric asked.

"Time Travel is a wiggley-wobbley mass of timey-whimey… stuff," the Doctor explained haphazardly.

"You are time travelers?" Eric asked carefully, his voice faint. He and Ryan both turned to Horatio, who didn't seem fazed. Any moment the psychiatrist would come in.

Ryan's phone rang, and he took a deep sigh of relief. "Wolfe."

"Ryan, it's Calleigh." Ryan could hear her smile. "Are you with the victim?"

"Yeah. How did you hear that?" he asked carefully.

"Alexx. But that isn't where the weird stops. The bullet taken from the vic was government issue."

"Which branch?"

"That's the weird part. It's so confidential that even the FBI and CIA don't have access. And, there was a gun found on the vic: a gun that hasn't been made since World War II. It was military issue."

"Okay," Ryan said slowly, tugging at the earlobe that didn't have a phone next to it. "A history buff."

"I don't think so," she said thoughtfully. "It was fired recently. And this is where the weird becomes weirder. That other gun you found. It's functional."

"What?" Ryan choked out.

"It also shoots square holes."

Ryan tried to form a word and couldn't.

"Are you ready for the weirdest?"

"No," he said in a very small voice.

"In the vic's bag, there was a hand in a jar."

"A hand in a jar?" Ryan repeated incredulously.

"My Doctor Detector!" Captain Harkness exclaimed.

Ryan's brow frowned. "Calleigh, could you possibly bring that up?"

"After I send a sample to Valera, I'll be right up there. I don't want to miss this case."

"Thanks."

All four people stared at Ryan. Ryan stared at Captain Harkness.

"Why do you - " Ryan cut himself off. Asking about the hand in the jar wouldn't help Martha. "Doctor, what were you doing while Miss Jones was giving Captain Harkness CPR?"

"I was putting the parking brake on my TARDIS," he said.

"The parking break?" Eric asked.

"My ship had already taken an unscheduled trip with an unscheduled hitchhiker. She was upset."

"Please explain that, Doctor," Horatio encouraged. And seriously, what the hell? Horatio should not be encouraging this insanity.

"Jack hitchhiked on my TARDIS. It reacted by entering the Time Vortex without my say-so. It landed us here."

"Your ship did not like Captain Harkness?" Eric asked. Ryan could hear Eric's attempt to keep the incredulity from his voice.

"Right."

"So it went from Cardiff to Miami?" He followed up.

"Right."

"Why?"

The Doctor gave an exaggerated frown and wiggled his fingers dramatically. "Wiggley-wobbley, timey-whimey. Although, nubile young men and women in various states of undress had a lot to do with this particular location."

Calleigh blew into the room and placed a jar with a hand in it on the table.

"Cal, that's a hand in a jar," Eric pointed out unhelpfully.

"That's my hand!" the Doctor exclaimed, pointing with both of his hands.

"My Doctor Detector," Captain Harkness stated.

"Doctor, you have both of your hands," Ryan pointed out.

"I lost that one in a sword fight," he explained, the majority of his focus on his hand in the jar.

"And another one just grew in?" Eric asked.

"Well, yeah."

"Let's see if we can confirm that," Calleigh said, wielding a swab. "Say 'Ah.'"

The Doctor obliged, and Calleigh swabbed the inside of the Doctor's mouth.

"Thank you." She capped the swab with a smile.

"You don't want a genetic sample from me?" Jack asked flirtatiously.

"We already have one," she said and left the men in the room.

"Now, Doctor," Horatio said. "Do you have an image of Miss Jones? Possibly in your trouser pocket?"

The Doctor frowned and reached into his pocket. He brought out a leather wallet and opened it. Ryan frowned at it and wondered how he had missed that when he frisked the Doctor earlier.

"Right. There she is," he said. He placed the picture of Martha down on the table, giving Horatio a curious look.

"Is that an image of the girl?" Horatio asked.

"Yes."

"All right, boys. We have a missing girl to find."

"Delko?" Ryan asked, sounding slightly panicked. "That's the girl from last night."

"Yeah, recognize her too, Wolfe," Eric said, sounding just as panicked.

"Where did you see her last night?" Horatio asked.

"A bar. Uh, our usual one." Ryan said. "She said - Oh, God." He sunk his head into his hands.

"She said 'oh God'? That doesn't sound much like Martha if you ask me," the Doctor said with a frown.

"No, she said 'thank you,'" Ryan said.

"Then you and Eric had better give her a reason to thank you," Horatio said.

"Are we done?" Captain Harkness asked.

"Don't go far," Horatio said.

Eric and Ryan scurried out of the interrogation room, leaving Horatio with the Doctor and Jack. Jack, however, left the room moments after.

Curiosity overwhelmed Ryan, which he assumed possessed him to ask, "How do you think Miss Jones knew us?"

"I don't know, man. I want this case over with as soon as possible."

Ryan snorted. "How would we charge someone with murder if the victim is now alive? Is this still a homicide?"

Eric shook his head. "No clue."

Ryan stopped. "We forgot the hand and the image. I'll grab it and bring it down to DNA."

Horatio and the Doctor were deep in conversation when Ryan entered the room without knocking.

"Wiggley-wobbley, timey-whimey."

Ryan froze and blinked hard. Horatio had said that. Not the Doctor, who Ryan expected to sprout nonsense. That was Horatio - serious, intense, no nonsense, "we never close" Horatio.

Horatio turned around. "Mr. Wolfe?"

"I came to collect the hand and image," Ryan said when he found his voice.

Horatio nodded.

Ryan collected the jar and image, but he caught something reflective out of the corner of his eye. The Doctor was in possession of another sonic screwdriver. Ryan knew that the Doctor did not have that in his possession when he entered the room.

He shook his head and left the room with the jar and image.

****

: : :

Ryan sank down into a chair in the break room, rubbing his hands over his face with a deep sigh. He had gone directly from the DNA lab to the break room. Maxine said that the hand matched the Doctor's DNA, and it wasn't human. She also confirmed that all of the blood from the scene belonged to the victim. And that DNA was barely recognizable as human.

Eric joined him moments later, sinking down in the same fashion across the room from Ryan.

"Hey, Wolfe," he said.

"Delko," Ryan responded wearily.

"I just came from trace." He sounded as if he had really said that he had come from Stetler's office, not trace.

"Yeah?" Ryan asked, unsure if he wanted an answer.

"The dust we found on the vic- Captain Harkness is not silica dioxide."

Ryan waited a beat, then asked, "Well, what is it?"

"Some strange heavy metal," Eric offered.

"Since when is a heavy metal crystalline?"

"I don't know, man. The mass spec couldn't make anything of it."

"What do you mean?"

"It was too heavy to even register."

Ryan scrubbed a hand down over his face. "No substance on Earth is that heav- No way."

"You just limited the suspect pool. I'll see if I can get a list from NASA."

"Check those who would be issued a weapon."

"Why would a NASA employee need a weapon?"

"Security - security wouldn't need classified weapons."

"I'll see what I can come up with."

"I'll see if Calleigh can help us narrow that search."

****

: : :

"It's four hours from Cape Canaveral to the 'Glades," Ryan announced upon entering Calleigh's lab. "Why would a NASA employee with a classified gun make the trip?"

"Because it's not NASA," she said, looking up from her computer.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. It's NID. How did you come to the conclusion that it was NASA?"

"The trace found on the vic didn't originate on Earth."

"Really?"

"The NID? That's familiar."

"National Intelligence Department. An independent government agency based in D.C."

"Are there any branches in Florida?"

She sighed. "No, but the NID has been known to work closely with the Air Force, which is consistent with the military boot prints found at the scene."

"Homestead?"

"It is near the 'Glades. See if Aaron can give us something that'll give us a connection." Calleigh winked at him.

Ryan frowned. "Aaron? You're on first name terms?"

She raised her eyebrows. "He's in trace right now."

"Delko was the one who - "

"Ryan, I meant talk with him." Calleigh smiled that secretive "I know something you don't know" smile. "You shouldn't be making Eric go to trace so you can avoid Aaron."

"…what?" Had Calleigh always been that weird and convoluted?

"You and Aaron have been flirting since he started here, and something good obviously happened to you last night - "

"You think we - Aaron Peters?" he squeaked.

"So it wasn't Aaron? Who was it, then?" she pressed.

A blush crept up the back of Ryan's neck, and he wished that he were better at masking his emotions.

"Oh, this has got to be juicy."

"Calleigh, just - after this case, okay?"

"Alright, but I'll hold you to that, mister."

"Aaron's been flirting with me?" Ryan decided that he would be embarrassed later by the way his voice cracked.

"Yes."

"Oh." Ryan cleared his throat. "Uh, so this case. All we had to go off of was something we thought was quartz."

Calleigh smiled indulgently, but she let him change the subject. "Could it have come from the Doctor?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Valera said that his DNA wasn't human. That makes him alien." Ryan made a strangled sound. He must have been the only one not taking this in stride. Calleigh ignored him and breezed on. "Eric said that the vic hitchhiked with the Doctor against his say so. People have killed for less."

"But the Doctor knew that Captain Harkness wouldn't die, and that doesn't give us any leads to find the girl."

"No, but Captain Harkness would be out long enough to take the girl, assuming there is a girl. The Doctor gives you a witness with valuable information even if he wasn't the one who took the shot."

"There was a girl, trust me. I'll see if the Doctor's still with H."

****

: : :

Ryan found both of them still in the interrogation room.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Wolfe?" Horatio asked.

"I was hoping the Doctor might be of some assistance."

"Glad to be of service," the Doctor chirped.

"We found a heavy metal on Captain Harkness that could not have originated on Earth." Ryan handed the Doctor a piece of paper he had picked up in the trace lab. Thankfully Aaron was not in the lab at the time, because Ryan had no idea how to act around him now that he knew Aaron had been flirting with him.

The Doctor pulled out and put on a pair of glasses that Ryan hadn't found when he frisked the Doctor.

"Ah, let's see…. Hmm. I haven't seen this in years. This is fascinating! You say you found it on Jack? He must have picked it up from someplace interesting. I don't think it could have come from the TARDIS."

"What is it, Doctor?" Horatio interjected.

"It's naquahdah."

"Nack-wa-duh?" Ryan repeated.

"Right. It powers Goa'uld technology. Bad news there."

Ryan closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady his nerves. "What is a goold?"

"Not goold: Goa'uld," the Doctor corrected. "That means Martha is in danger. She has this habit of being kidnapped. First time I took her off the planet, she managed to be kidnapped. It was New - "

"The Goa'uld, Doctor," Horatio interrupted. He wasn't commenting about the off planet part?

"Right. They're symbiotes. They attach themselves to the brain of their host. They consider themselves gods. It's - what? - early 21 century? So there should be very few Goa'uld left. The one that kidnapped Martha is probably part of the Trust." He stood up abruptly. "I'd best be off to find her."

The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets and nodded to Horatio and Ryan before heading out.

"Horatio, what's going on?"

"We have a missing girl to find." Horatio slipped on his sunglasses and left the room.

Well, that wasn't very helpful.

****

: : :

Paula told Ryan that Captain Harkness had asked directions to the nearest bar, which was where Ryan found him nursing a pint of water. He had thrown his greatcoat over a wicker chair as he watched the people pass on the street.

"I'd follow the Doctor to the end of the universe, but I much prefer Miami. This is not the normal dress for a city like Cardiff."

"Captain Harkness," Ryan said.

Captain Harkness looked up at him and winked. "Is there something you wanted, Officer Wolfe?"

"You need to come back to the station for more questioning."

"You can question me all you want right here."

"Captain Harkness," Ryan stressed.

"You need information about Goa'uld technology," he said in a tone that had Ryan itching to punch him.

"Yes," Ryan said in a pinched voice. There was no way that Captain Harkness could have known what Ryan was looking for. "I need to know if you came into contact with that before or during Miss Jones's abduction."

"I haven't seen Goa'uld technology since the '50's."

Ryan frowned. Jack didn't look nearly old enough to be born in the 1950's let alone remember it. "You haven't seen anything like that in fifty years?"

"Not since the 50's, no." Ryan was confused as to why Jack avoided saying that the 1950's was fifty years ago.

"What does goold technology look like?"

"Most of their technology is primitive, but they're scavengers, so it could look Ancient or Asgardian." Whatever that meant.

Captain Harkenss's watch beeped.

"Excuse me, officer. I need to make a call."

****

: : :

"What do you have?" Ryan asked as he entered the ballistics labs.

"Nothing new, Ryan," Calleigh said with a sad smile. "But Eric was about to head out to Homestead."

"Great. Thanks. I'll see if I can catch him before he heads out." Which may not have been a bad thing, but there were forty minutes between them and the base. That was forty minutes of either awkward silence or awkward conversation.

Ryan was able to catch Eric as he left the building, and they both entered the Hummer in silence: Eric driving and Ryan as a passenger.

It wasn't until they were out of the parking lot that the silence dug under Ryan's skin and he needed to deal with it. "Calleigh told you that we were looking for an NID guy?"

"Yeah."

"She also tell you about goold technology and nack-wa-duh?"

"No." Eric frowned.

"Nack-wa-duh was the heavy metal trace found on the vic. It apparently comes from goold technology. Just don't ask me what that means."

Eric gave Ryan a quick, concerned look while he stopped the Hummer at a red light.

"Goolds are symbiotes, so we're looking for someone who doesn't exactly act human. God, I can't believe that I'm saying this in all seriousness."

Eric snorted out a laugh.

"And what was with H?" Ryan groused. "He knows a lot more than he's saying. He knew what the vic used on us - that paper stuff."

"H knew what it was?"

"Yeah, he said it was psychic paper."

"What did it say that made you blush?" Eric pried.

"It said… It said that I, that, uh… I looked good in a suit." Ryan blushed.

"Well, that much is true," Eric responded thoughtfully.

Ryan sputtered incoherently. "Excuse me?" he managed to squeeze out.

"You look good in a suit. Although I have to point out that the one you wore yesterday was better for you. Made your eyes more green and intense. Sweater vests on the other hand…"

Ryan snorted in incredulity. "You a fashionista now?"

"No, I just liked what I saw."

"Delko, we should talk."

"We are, Wolfe," he responded sarcastically.

"About yesterday."

"What about it?" Eric challenged.

"Natalia's a conniving bitch."

Eric barked out a laugh. "What makes you say that?"

"She planned everything that happened last night. Well, everything except our missing girl. And you were in on it."

"What makes you say that?"

Ryan leveled Eric with a glare.

"Fine. You knew that Natalia and I were in a causal relationship. We decided not to fool around anymore unless there was someone else in the picture."

"You agreed to a threesome?"

"So did you - if you remember correctly."

"De- Eric, that was not a threesome. Yeah, there were three of us, but Natalia just kinda watched and ordered us around."

"Yeah, she did." A fond smile grew across Eric's face, and his eyes glazed over.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "You told me that the paper said that I wanted to dominate."

Eric nodded.

"I do. I - " Ryan cut himself off. "I'm really bad with this kind of thing."

"Didn't seem like that last night," Eric offered. "That thing with your tongue - "

"I meant interpersonal relationships," Ryan interrupted hotly.

"Really?" Ryan could tell that Eric was desperately trying not to laugh at him.

"Harkness also said that I was 'spoken for,'" Ryan growled. "I can speak for myself."

"I can see that," Eric returned dryly.

"You know what, Delko, just forget it. It's obviously not worth any effort." Ryan crossed his arms petulantly.

"Let's see what happens once this case is wrapped up. It's making things weird."

"I don't think it's just the case," Ryan grumbled.

"Ryan, we're looking for an alien." Eric pointed out. "That's pretty up there in weird."

"I meant between us."

Eric didn't respond.

"Of course, the Doctor could also be lying to us."

"How do you mean?"

"About the girl being missing."

"We saw her _thank_ us. And he was the one who brought her up. Why bring her up at all if we didn't know she was missing?"

Ryan sighed. "Do you really think he's an alien?"

"That's what his DNA says."

"And we follow the evidence," Ryan said reluctantly. "But how do you explain Horatio?"

"What about him?"

"He knew what psychic paper was - and he couldn't see what was on it."

"H works in strange ways."

Ryan's phone rang. "Wolfe."

"Hey Ryan, it's Calleigh. I have some news from Valera about that gar head that Eric found."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"It was positive for GSR."

"Someone shot it off?!"

"It seems that someone was shooting fish in a barrel. Except that it's not a fish."

"What?"

"It's not a fish," Calleigh repeated.

"What is it, then?"

"The results came back inconclusive. When you come back, Eric should be able to ID it."

"He was the one who IDed it to begin with."

"Interesting."

"It was also found a good quarter mile from the nearest water source deep enough."

"Really."

"I have no idea what's going on, Cal."

"That makes two of us."

"We'll let you know if we find anything at Homestead."

"Okay. Since you're sitting in the car with nothing better to do, you could tell me all about why you're in such a strange mood. You're actually happy."

"No, I'm not. Well, yes, I am, but not more so than normal."

"I think you should talk to Aaron anyway."

Ryan made a choked noise that Calleigh chuckled at. "Bye, Calleigh." He hung up before she could stop laughing and ask him more embarrassing questions.

Ryan sunk down as far as his seatbelt would allow. He could feel Eric watching him, but he scowled at the dashboard.

"Calleigh said that gar head was shot off, and it wasn't a gar head," Ryan mumbled eventually.

"What was it?"

"Inconclusive."

"It looked like a gar head to me."

"That's what I told her."

Eric hummed an affirmation, and then he said, "What was that last bit about?"

Ryan tried to fight the flush that crept up his neck. Eric caught it.

"Well?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Is that all you want to tell me?"

"Yes!" Ryan hissed.

Eric laughed quietly to himself, and Ryan glowered at him. "She noticed that your mood changed from yesterday to today, and now she's hounding you to dish out the gossip."

Ryan snapped his head to focus on Eric, which caused him to laugh harder.

"Calleigh's a bloodhound for gossip. Not as much as Cooper, but as soon as she knows something juicy happened, she's all over it. It's her way of showing that she cares."

"I know that - I just don't want her to be all over me. Why does she have to be so damn good at her job?"

"You don't want her all over you?!" Eric asked, scandalized. "Do girls still have cooties?" he teased.

"Fuck you, Delko," Ryan muttered and stared out the window.

Ryan thought he was off the hook until Eric said, "We'll see once this case is over."

It was such a clichéd and _tacky_ thing to say, but that didn't stop Ryan from choking on his breath. He desperately tried to regain his composure, but all he could think about was how wonderful the weight of Eric's cock felt against the palm of his hand and how delicious the salt was on Eric's inner thighs. Ryan shifted uneasily.

Eric didn't say anything else until they arrived at Homestead. He flashed his badge to gain entrance and told Ryan to be on the lookout for something out of place.

They walked in silence to General Cadman's office.

General Cadman met them at the door and ushered them in.

"I'm CSI Delko, and this is my partner CSI Wolfe," Eric said.

Ryan nodded and successfully attempted not to choke when Eric called him his partner. CSIs did not have partners; they had teams. Calleigh was a member of their team. Eric was purposefully messing with him. The bastard.

"Have a seat, gentlemen," General Cadman said, and Ryan and Eric did so. "Now, how can I help you?"

"We are working on a homicide case, and we believe that an NID operative may have played a part in it along with the Air Force," Ryan explained.

General Cadman's face darkened. "The Air Force does not work in cooperation with the NID."

"We didn't say anything about cooperation, general," Eric said. "We need information about any NID operative in the area."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, officers. If there were an operative in the area, I would not be the one he or she would report to."

"Would we be able to speak with an NID operative?"

"No."

"Sir, this is about homicide. We would not be asking if - "

"No. We're done here, gentlemen."

Ryan clenched his jaw, and Eric put a firm hand on Ryan's arm before he could say anything damning.

"We appreciate your time, sir," Eric lied.

****

: : :

"I hate the government," Ryan grumbled as he and Eric walked back to the Hummer.

"Hey now, that government signs your paychecks."

"Technically not _that_ government."

"Hey - Isn't that the Doctor and our vic?" Eric pointed off to Ryan's left.

Ryan followed Eric's arm, and lo, there were the Doctor and Captain Harkness chatting up a girl.

"Shall we?" Ryan proposed, raising an eyebrow.

Eric nodded and gave him a feral grin that showed sharp canines that had recently sunken into Ryan's flesh. Not that he was thinking about that.

"Doctor!" Eric called.

The Doctor, Captain Harkness, and the girl turned to them.

"Officers!" The Doctor exclaimed. "This is Lieutenant Cadman."

"Are you boys with the IOA as well?" IOA? Were they with the NID too?

"No," Ryan said. "We're with the county, but we're working with the IOA on a case."

"Cool." She looked both Ryan and Eric up and down appraisingly.

"Are you related to the general?" Eric asked, flashing her a dazzling grin.

"He's my Dad, yeah. I'm on leave, so I decided to visit him… So you IOA boys are working a Goa'uld case?"

And what the hell? Last Ryan knew, people, especially military, did not just hand out information like that.

"Yes ma'am," Ryan said, because why the hell not just run with it?

"They're devious bastards," she shrugged. "I thought most of the Trust was out in Colorado and Nevada, though."

"There's been some activity in Miami that involved the kidnapping of a girl," the Doctor explained. "And the death of Jack here."

"Was she a civilian?" she asked. She didn't even blink an eye at the idea that Captain Harkness had died.

"Yes." Ryan found that there was something hypnotizing about watching the Doctor, and add Captain Harkness to the mix and no woman was safe. Of course, if Ryan were honest with himself, which he usually was, because why bother lying when you know that you're lying, under any other circumstance, Ryan would have enjoyed the attention of someone like Captain Harkness.

"Do you know anything about the goold that could help us locate her?" Eric asked.

"Well, they kidnapped her and killed Jack, so that must mean that they want her for a host. They would probably take her to some place with an alter. They're big on traditions and such."

"Would you happen to know what they were doing out in the Everglades?" Ryan asked.

"No idea, no. Good luck finding the girl. I've got to get back before my Dad thinks that I'm spilling military secrets."

"Before you go, lieutenant, what do you know about the NID?"

"Nothing I can tell you boys about, but shouldn't you already know if you're with the IOA?"

Eric gave a coy chuckle that Ryan had always interpreted as Eric having lost his handle on a situation.

"We're international, miss," the Doctor said, exaggerating his British accent. "Americans are not big on sharing their secrets."

She gave a wry snort. "Right. I still can't tell you boys. But you might want to get in contact with a Colonel Frank Simmons. Good luck, boys."

She smiled brightly and left the four men.

"What's the IOA?" Eric asked.

"International Oversight Advisory," Captain Harkness answered. Oversight of what?

"And she was completely okay with the idea that you have died before," Ryan pointed out.

The amused look that Captain Harkness gave Ryan made him want to do many things that were mostly felonies and some that should be.

Eric's phone rang. "Delko… We're on our way."

He and Ryan made eye contact and left the Doctor and Captain Harkness with a nod.

****

:: :: ::

What do we got, Frank?" Ryan asked. There was obviously a corpse in the middle of a warehouse, Ryan figured that much.

"No ID on the man. Owner called this in. I already have his statement." Frank pointed to a man speaking with a patrol officer. "I figured you and Eric could tie this to your case." He placed his hands on his hips and nodded in the direction of the body.

Ryan frowned as he watched Alexx attend to the body. The victim was no more than thirty years old. His shirt had fallen open and exposed a gaping hole and something that looked disturbingly like intestines was hanging out.

"I'll sketch," Eric said.

Ryan nodded and approached Alexx. "Hey, do you a tentative COD?"

"Baby boy shows no trauma except the hole in his stomach."

"I'd say that's pretty traumatic, Alexx."

"But that's not what killed him."

"It was postmortem?"

"No, it's fully healed." She pointed to the edges of the hole in the man's stomach. "See the scar tissue around the side? This wound is years old."

Ryan knelt down beside her to inspect the hole. "Jesus," he whispered.

"This is what Frank wanted you to see." Alexx took a pair of forceps and pulled up the exposed intestine, which upon closer inspection was not an intestine, much to Ryan's relief and confusion. It looked like a giant, grey, headless worm… thing with fins.

"Alexx, what the hell is that?"

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"Wait. If this - I can't believe I'm going to say this, but let's see if there's any GSR on this worm thing." Ryan rummaged through his kit and pulled out a swab and a bottle of sodium rhodizonate. He swabbed the severed end of the worm thing while Alexx watched him incredulously.

They made eye contact as Ryan took a deep breath and poured a drop of the liquid onto the swab.

It turned blue.

Ryan pursed his lips and nodded. "GSR."

"Care to share with the class?" Alexx asked.

"Yeah. Just - Hey! Delko! C'mer!" Ryan called.

Eric frowned and ambled over. "Yeah."

"See this worm thing? It's missing a head that's been shot off."

"Do you think it matches the head I found?"

"It's a strong possibility. The original crime scene would therefore be only a half of a mile away… But there's no blood trail."

"I'll take the worm thing to Valera. See if it's a match."

"As soon as I put this boy on the post, you'll have it. So you think he was involved with the victim that walked out of my morgue?"

Eric nodded and walked away to continue sketching.

"Yeah," Ryan sighed. "Two wicked weird things this close to each other? They're definitely related. We just don't know how yet."

"Wicked?"

"Sorry, my Boston is showing." Ryan's ears turned pink.

Alexx laughed softly. "Don't worry, baby. I won't tell anyone."

"Thanks, Alexx." Ryan smiled shyly at her.

Ryan's phone rang, and he slipped a glove off one hand to pick it up. "Wolfe."

"Ryan, it's Cooper. Calleigh asked me to do some research about this Doctor guy, and let me tell you, it's really interesting."

"How so?"

"There are records of him since before there was such a thing as records. People are saying that he knows what's going to happen before it does and that he's the world's foremost authority on aliens."

"Timey-whimey," Ryan whispered. He stopped himself from putting a hand to his mouth and tugging at his lips thoughtfully: the hand he wasn't holding his phone with was sheathed in a glove covered in God knows what. And maybe, just maybe the Doctor was telling the truth, and he was a time traveler. Which didn't make sense because it broke all the known laws of physics.

"What?" Cooper asked.

"Nothing."

"Okay. I also have an image that I think you and Eric should see. I've already shown Calleigh, but - "

"We'll be back to the lab in about two hours."

"Okay."

Ryan hung up with a sigh.

"But we're qualified to be here!" was shouted across the warehouse.

Ryan groaned. He recognized that voice. He had heard it enough in the past several hours.

"A friend of yours?" Alexx asked wryly.

Ryan gave her an unimpressed look. "No, but you're friends with his friend."

They both stood and turned to the disturbance.

"That's the man who walked out of my morgue!" Alexx stated indignantly.

"His name is Captain Jack Harkness, and his friend is the Doctor," Ryan said in an amused tone. "I think they're trying to use that psychic paper stuff to get in."

"Psychic paper?"

"Ask Horatio about it. Frank knows who they are, though. This ought to be interesting to watch."

"This is the second crime scene today we've found you at," Frank said in an amused and condescending tone. "Of which you both are suspects. I guess you are both as stupid as you look. Back to PD with you."

Frank motioned to two patrol officers, who took the Doctor and Jack into the back of a squad car.

"Hey, Frank!" Ryan called. "Sign the Doctor in." If Horatio trusted him…

Frank and Alexx looked at Ryan as if he had lost his mind. The Doctor looked elated, and Jack looked insulted.

"You'd better know what you're doing, Wolfe," Frank warned.

"He might be able to save us time in the lab," Ryan explained. "As long as he doesn't touch anything," he added with a pointed look at the Doctor, who attempted to look innocent.

Frank grunted in acknowledgment and gestured for the patrol officer in charge of the Doctor to accompany him in and the other patrol officer to put Jack into the back of a patrol car.

"You are not to touch anything," Ryan warned.

The Doctor bobbed his head.

"Alexx, can you please show him the worm thing?"

Alexx gave him an unimpressed look and held up the worm thing.

The Doctor pulled out his glasses and studied it intently. "That is a Goa'uld," he stated matter-of-factly.

"But you said that it attaches to the brain," Ryan reasoned.

"That's because _that_ is a baby Goa'uld."

"A baby?" Alexx repeated skeptically.

"Yes, they put their babies in Jaffa. They're a slave race. I bet if you take off this poor guy's hat, you'll find their symbol-ly thing on his forehead."

Alexx gave him a questioning glare before pulling off the victim's baseball cap (Florida Marlins, who at least had the decency to defeat the Yankees a few years back) to reveal some weird dark tattoo in the shape of a "v" on his forehead.

"Ah-ha! Brilliant! It's been years since I've met a Jaffa. Of course, the last one I met was alive."

Ryan nodded to the patrol officer, who escorted the Doctor back to the patrol car.

"Ryan, what the hell is going on?" Alexx asked. "You can't possibly believe that."

Ryan shook his head. "His friend walked off your post, Alexx. I don't know what's real. This seems like a bizarre dream, except my dreams usually make more sense than this."

"Hey, Wolfe!" Eric called. "There's nothing else here. Let's meet the newest vic back at the lab."

****

: : :

"Is this fake?" Ryan demanded, shoving an image across an interrogation table to the Doctor.

There was no possible way that the image was real. It was one of the many images that Cooper had shown to him and Eric. This particular image was of Egypt, he assumed, with temples being constructed in the background. In the foreground of the picture was the Doctor in a different suit �" a grey one - with his arm slung around a man of twenty years with a shock of red hair and Horatio's very distinguished sunglasses.

"No, that's real. It was rather difficult to convince Horatio to pose and even more difficult to convince the Ancient to use the camera. Or so Horatio says. You know, I've been wondering this for a while now: how did you see my TARDIS?"

"This is an image of you and my boss in Ancient Egypt, which you claim is authentic, and you're wondering how I saw a giant blue box in the middle of my crime scene?"

"Yes."

"What is your relationship with Horatio?"

"We were mates for a while… or will be mates, depending on how you look at it. You'll have to ask him the details: it hasn't happened to me yet."

"What do you mean?"

"It happened in his past but my future. It's timey-whimey wiggly-wobbley. It's happened to me before. More so when Martha's around, actually. Time travel does not follow what you think of as chronological order. It follows a chronological order or timeline for each individual, which may or may not contradict the timeline of another individual. In this case, my timeline isn't chronological with Horatio's."

Ryan blinked at the Doctor, his mind reeling.

"But it's so much easier to say "timey-whimey" - more fun too. Are you going to answer my question? And shouldn't you be out looking for Martha?"

"It's on-going," Ryan said in a monotone.

"And my TARDIS?"

"I was looking for something that shouldn't be there," Ryan indulged.

"That's brilliant!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Am I still being held? Because I think I know where she is."

"You're not leaving. You have information that you're going to share."

"No, I'm not." The Doctor said indignantly.

"Then sit tight." Ryan smiled a nasty, closed-mouth smile.

"You're going to keep me here and possibly let a young girl die. I said I would protect her! You humans - "

Ryan braced himself on the table and leaned over and into the Doctor's face. "Or you could tell me where she is." He wasn't sure if he should take offense to being referred to as "you human."

"I need to go back to my TARDIS," the Doctor explained.

Ryan sighed. "You're not in any position to negotiate."

"And you're wasting your time trying to intimidate me. You already asked my advice on that Goa'uld, and I gave it. Now it's my turn to ask a favor of you. That's the way information is traded. Don't you think so, Horatio?" The Doctor looked over Ryan's shoulder.

Ryan resisted the urge to look.

"Mr. Wolfe and I will personally escort you back to the TARDIS." Ryan swallowed the urge to jump at Horatio's unexpected voice and the urge to question Horatio's decision. It was "the" TARDIS, not "your" TADRIS.

Horatio was running his fingers along the earpiece of his sunglasses and had an amused expression on his face as he cocked his head at the image splayed on the table. That expression never led to good things for Ryan.

****

: : :

"Where do you think Miss Jones is?" Horatio asked as Ryan sulked in the back of the Hummer. The Doctor was given shotgun.

"The Goa'uld are nasty creatures. I ran into one a few years back. He decided to make clones of himself. He was stopped. Or will be stopped. What is the date today?"

Ryan didn't hear Horatio's response as his phone rang. "Wolfe."

"Ryan, it's Delko. I have the preliminary post results from Alexx."

"Yeah?"

"Entropic Cascade Failure. She doesn't know where it started, though. She's still on it."

"What?"

"I don't really know. The vic's body just shut down. Tox came back negative. There were no signs of new trauma. And the only gunshot was fired at the worm in his belly."

Ryan sighed. "Thanks, man."

"Where are you? I searched the entire lab. And do you know why Peters is acting so weird? It's like I'm the plague."

"Aaron Peters? No idea," Ryan lied. Great, if Aaron was acting like that, and if Calleigh was right, it meant that he knew what was going on and was… jealous? Disgusted? Maybe as soon as Ryan figured out what was going on, he'd tell Eric, but right now… "I'm with H and the Doctor, heading back out to the 'Glades."

"The primary crime scene?"

"Kinda."

"Kinda?" Eric mocked. "Like we kinda had a threesome last night?"

Ryan choked on his tongue. "Do you have something productive to tell me or not? If not, I'm hanging up," he said tersely.

"Hold on, Wolfe. I was thinking about what Lieutenant Cadman had said about alters, and I did some cross-referencing. There is a traveling Ancient Egypt exhibit about to open at the Lowe Art Museum. They say that they have an alter. You might want to check that out with H."

"We're heading past Coral Gables now. We'll see what we can find."

"I'll let Frank know."

"Good." Ryan hung up. "Hey, H, let's make a stop at the Lowe Art Museum."

Horatio looked at him via the rearview mirror. "Lowe?"

"Eric said that they have a traveling exhibit that may interest us. I think the Doctor should take a look at it," Ryan added. It didn't hurt to resort to giving subtle suggestions about Horatio's friend from way back who the Doctor wasn't friends with yet. This time stuff gave Ryan a headache. And thinking about it like that made it real, which Ryan was hoping it wasn't for his sanity's sake. His life was too insane as is �" without kinky coworkers and aliens from the past, present, or future depending on which angle you took.

"What type of exhibit?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"Ancient Egypt."

"That's perfect!" the Doctor exclaimed. "The Goa'uld like Ancient culture."

"Don't you mean Ancient Egyptian?" Ryan asked.

"Nope."

****

: : :

Horatio and the Doctor were charming the girl working the front desk as Ryan observed everything he could about the lobby. Where the exits were, where the doors were, where the doors led, which doors were locked, which doors had the most traffic. There was a camera aimed at the front desk and one aimed at the front doors.

Horatio flashed his badge, and the Doctor flashed his psychic paper, and like magic, an official-looking woman appeared behind the desk. And after a few clipped words, the three of them were escorted to where the artifacts were being held.

She watched over them with a sharp glower as they searched for anything that might help them. Good thing for Ryan, Horatio and the Doctor knew what that was. Ryan found the exits and other places that could help someone disappear. He tested every door except for the one that read "Emergency Exit: Alarm Will Sound." He figured that would not be a welcomed decision. He would see it on the outside.

He had one last door to test. His hands were poised over the door handle when the woman said, "Sir, you are not permitted to go in there! There's nothing for this exhibit in there!"

Ryan pretended not to hear her and opened it anyway.

There was a gun inches away from his face aimed and cocked. Ryan swallowed his panic attack. The last time he had a gun trained on his face…

He could feel Horatio behind him and knew his gun was drawn. Good to know that Horatio had his back.

"Lower your weapon," Horatio growled. "Miami-Dade PD."

The man who had shoved his gun in Ryan's face looked like he had bitten into something bitter, but he lowered his gun.

Horatio kept his gun aimed.

"Federal Agent Malcolm Barrett, NID," the man grunted.

Ryan looked passed the man and saw a room laid out with computers and charts and God knows what else. It was like something out of "Men in Black." There was evidence of multiple people who were not in the room currently. Ryan assumed they were out, but he had no idea where out was, and the hair on the back of his neck rose when he realized that their backs were exposed to these MIBs when they decided to return.

"Ah, the NID," the Doctor chirped and flashed his psychic paper. "Agent John Smith, IOA." Like before, the Doctor exaggerated his accent. And how did an alien have a British accent? That didn't make any sense.

"We don't answer to the IOA," Agent Barrett growled. He had not moved from the doorway, obviously not intending on letting anyone into that room.

"No? We're looking into this Goa'uld case as well, taking the proper channels," the Doctor said.

"Fed trumps local, but international trumps fed," Horatio pointed out. Ryan realized two things simultaneously. One: Horatio knew what IOA stood for, and two: how the hell could international trump fed?

"Hey! Nobody told me there was a party!" Someone called from behind them. Ryan whirled around, his gun drawn.

The man who spoke had a lazy smirk on his face but raised his hands when Ryan trained his gun on him.

The official-looking woman was standing behind the stranger.

"Hey now, there's no reason for that. We're all friends here."

Ryan scowled. "Who the hell are you?"

"Colonel Cameron Mitchell, US Air Force. And you are?"

Ryan could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. After a sexual dry spell, he was being bombarded by attractive men. Three of whom were actually interested in him. And one of those three with whom he had actually slept with. That was hardly fair. Next would come the beautiful women. Natalia notwithstanding. "Officer Wolfe, MDPD. Lieutenant Horatio Caine, MDPD, and IOA Agent John Smith."

Ryan opened up his phone and dialed Frank all the while keeping his gun and eyes on the Colonel. All he had to say was "yeah" and hung up. He loved it when there was communication between everyone.

"IOA?" The Colonel asked incredulously, as if a gun in his face were nothing dangerous.

"Cameron Mitchell?" the Doctor asked. "Why is that familiar?" And seriously, did the Doctor know everyone?

The Colonel frowned.

"Oh! You did Public Relations work for the Stargate Program!" the Doctor exclaimed.

The Colonel chuckled. "PR work…? You said you were IOA, Johnny? There's no John Smith in the IOA. I know them all personally. Unfortunately. So, that begs the question: who are you? And why are you making up things about a gate star?"

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor stated.

"Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor."

"What sized shoe do you wear, Colonel?" Ryan asked abruptly.

"Size ten. Why?"

"He wears a size ten, H."

"So I heard, Mr. Wolfe," Horatio responded, clearly amused.

"We found size ten military issue boot prints at the scene of a homicide this morning."

The Colonel looked ready to bolt. He turned his head toward the exit.

"Where do you think you're going?" Frank asked. "Have a guilty conscience or something?"

"Impeccable timing, Frank. As always," Horatio said.

"Maybe my men can take things from here."

As a patrol cop cuffed Agent Barrett, taking his gun and handing it to Horatio, another cuffed the Colonel, a third one cuffed the official looking woman, and a fourth cuffed the Doctor.

"On what grounds are you arresting us?" Agent Barrett demanded.

"Suspicion of murder," Frank grunted. "And her for accomplice to murder."

"Not the Doctor this time, Officer," Horatio said. "He's with us."

The patrol cop cuffing the Doctor frowned but unlocked the cuffs.

"You sure, Horatio?" Frank asked. "This is the third time he's been at a scene today."

"He's with us. We brought him here."

Frank looked as if he was going to argue but didn't open his mouth. He was suspicious. Hell, so was Ryan. Federal agents didn't just pop up and neither did aliens, wormlike or otherwise. Assuming it was aliens and not some flashback from that one stupid time he dropped acid his freshman year of college. He lost control of himself and vowed never to do any other drug heavier than caffeine or alcohol ever again.

"Tell Calleigh that our NID agent here needs a GSR test. We'll have his 9 mill to her as soon as possible."

"Sure thing, Horatio," Frank said, undoubtedly wanting to say more. "I'll set up two men at each entrance."

"I don't like guns," the Doctor muttered as the cops lead the three suspects out. Ryan found himself agreeing.

"Are you alright, Ryan?" Horatio asked. Ryan surmised that Horatio was more concerned about the gun to Ryan's face than the gun aimed at him.

"Yeah, I'm good, H." Ryan managed a half-sincere nod.

"It appears we have another crime scene to process - " He was interrupted by his phone. "Horatio. Yes, ma'am. Understood." He hung up. "I stand corrected. This is not another crime scene, but we will need to keep this place under observation."

"Should we head back to PD? See what the feds are up to?"

"We should. I'll ask Frank to keep the uniforms here."

****

: : :

"So, Colonel Mitchell, we have evidence that puts you at our crime scene this morning." Ryan steepled his fingers on the table as he shifted from elbow to elbow.

"Is that so?" the Colonel drawled.

"Yes, that's so," Eric said. "So why don't you make it easier for all of us and tell us why you shot a Captain Jack Harkness and a baby goold."

"I don't know any Captain Jack Harkness. Captain of what?"

"And the goold?" Ryan prompted.

The Colonel chuckled wryly. "You Hardy Boys are persistent."

"Hey, Hardy Boys, we've heard that before, right, A. Rod?"

Eric chortled. "We sure have, Jake."

"I always thought there was something hinky going on with those boys, I mean how could - "

"Colonel Mitchell, the goold?" Ryan interrupted.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said innocently, exaggerating his accent in an innocent southern boy way that made both Ryan and Eric suspicious.

Ryan narrowed his gaze. "I think you do."

"Why would you think that?"

"Let me see the soles of your boots, Colonel," Eric ordered.

"No, sir. You're going to need a warrant for that."

"It's in plain sight, so, no, we don't need a warrant," Ryan answered smoothly.

The Colonel put his feet up on the table, and Eric scrapped the caked mud on the souls into an evidence envelope.

"You know, when I used to babysit for my niece, she always made me watch this show on the Science Fiction channel," Ryan commented. ""Wormhole X-Treme!" I believe it is called."

The Colonel raised an eyebrow.

"It was low budget science fiction with very little science to it. It was actually a horrible show and was cancelled before the season had run its entirety. My niece, unfortunately, was given the DVD set as a gift. And I think it's being picked up again."

Eric frowned at Ryan. Ryan never monologued. The Colonel lowered his eyebrow and adopted an air of boredom.

"It's about some evil alien parasites that are trying to take over the galaxy posing as gods. And about the US military trying to stop them in a top secret government wormhole program."

"So?" The Colonel drawled. "That's a television show. I don't see the connection."

"You know what else is a television show?" Ryan asked, leaning forward across the table. "Hard Crime."

"I don't see a correlation," the Colonel said with a frown.

"Not only that, but there is a covert government branch called the NID that occasionally helps with the wormhole program. Doesn't that sound similar to an NID agent and an Air Force colonel who happens to be the PR rep for the entire program?" Ryan was highly aware of Eric watching him intently when he _should_ have been watching the suspect.

"No," the Colonel said easily.

Ryan frowned and drew himself upright. He had nothing else to work with at the time, so he nodded to the accompanying officer, who removed the Colonel from the room.

When the Colonel had been removed from the room, Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose.

Eric stared at him in amusement. "First video games, now television shows?"

Ryan frowned and snatched the evidence envelope out of Eric's hands. "Go check on Frank, make sure he hasn't done anything rash with the NID agent. I'll bring this down to trace." That would satisfy Calleigh at least.

Eric raised his eyebrows mockingly. "Watch out for Peters, man."

Ryan rolled his eyes.

****

: : :

Aaron scowled at Ryan as soon as he set foot into the trace lab.

"I have some lovely dirt for you," Ryan announced amiably.

Aaron's scowl deepened. "That's ironic."

Ryan frowned. Maybe Eric wasn't joking about Aaron being in a foul mood. Not taking the bait but desperately wanting to, Ryan continued, "I was hoping you could match it to the dirt found on the victim in the 'Glades from this morning." He extended the envelope across the lab bench awkwardly.

Aaron looked as if it would attack him.

"Are you okay, man?" Ryan asked, furrowing his brow.

"Yeah," Aaron said tersely. He snatched the envelope out of Ryan's hand.

"Right. Let me know what you come up with."

Without waiting for Aaron to respond, Ryan hurried out of the trace lab and ended up face to face Calleigh.

"I just came from Miss Kelley's interrogation," she announced.

"Who?"

"The woman you picked up at the museum."

"What did she have to say for herself?"

"She said that the government showed up and told her that they had intelligence that there was going to be a heist for the Egyptian exhibit."

"So she's not involved?"

"She has no idea what's going on." Calleigh shook her head.

"You sure."

"Yeah. How did talking to Aaron work out?"

"I don't think he said more than two words at a time. Do you know why he's so cold today?"

Calleigh raised a delicate yet superior eyebrow. "There's a rumor going around the lab," she stated carefully.

Ryan stared at her apprehensively, fervently hoping that it wasn't what he thought it was.

"About you, Eric, and Boa Vista."

Ryan raked his thumbnail across his eyebrow and wished he were better at lying.

"So it's true?"

"How did that rumor start?" Ryan asked with a shaky laugh.

"Is it true?" Calleigh repeated.

"It depends what the rumor is," Ryan said defiantly. He was going to kill Eric. The moron had probably had the conversation with Ryan about the threesome in the trace lab - or the A/V lab, knowing Cooper's inability to keep his mouth shut.

Calleigh leveled him with her best cop glare.

Ryan sighed. "Yes, ma'am," he said quietly. He and Calleigh made a good tag team, but that didn't mean he could go one-on-one with her.

"Jesus, Ryan," she exclaimed softly.

"I know. I know," he replied pitifully.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked not unkindly.

"Go back in time and warn myself that it wouldn't be worth it," he said flippantly, and then he winced when he realized what he said.

"Right now, I suggest that you speak with Alexx. She's been waiting for you or Eric to join her at the post."

"I'll head there now. Uh, hey, Calleigh, when the sample is processed… " He waved his arm in the direction of the trace lab.

"I'll brave Aaron for you," she interrupted. Ryan didn't trust that she smirked when she did so.

****

: : :

There was a man in the lobby looking more than a little lost. He looked official, neat and tidy in a well tailored suit.

"Can I help you?" Ryan asked. If this was an NID operative, he didn't want anyone else in the lab to start _that_ rumor. There were too many rumors as it was.

"Uh, yes." The man turned to face him. Yet another gorgeous international man. "My name is Ianto Jones. Torchwood, Cardiff." He flashed a badge that Ryan didn't bother to look at. "I'm here to see about Captain Harkness."

Ryan stared at him. This was worse than an NID operative.

"It seems that he's gotten himself into trouble again. I'm terribly sorry about that."

A plethora of questions flooded Ryan's mind about how this man factored into everything.

"You're here for bond?" was the question he asked.

"Yes."

"He's not being charged," Ryan said with a frown. "He's free to go."

Mr. Jones looked at Ryan strangely. "I'm here about the Doctor as well."

"The Doctor? Hold on." Ryan pulled out his cell phone and dialed Horatio. "H, I have someone up here in the lobby who is here to pick up the Captain and knows the Doctor."

Mr. Jones watched Ryan serenely.

"Is that so?" Ryan could hear Horatio's incredulity.

"He says he's from Wales. A Torchwood."

"I see. I'll be right up. Ask him to stay where he is."

"Sure thing." Ryan hung up. "If you can just sit tight a minute, someone will be right with you," he said to Mr. Jones. "By the way, you wouldn't happen to know a Martha Jones, would you?"

Mr. Jones frowned. "No, I don't know any Martha Jones."

"Right. My boss will be right with you."

Mr. Jones smiled without showing any teeth. "Thank you."

****

: : :

Ryan stared at the back end of the worm in a jar. There were bits of viscera attached to it, and Ryan was more disturbed to find himself undisturbed by that fact.

"Do you have a more conclusive COD?" he asked.

"I wish I did, honey," Alexx informed him, opening her hands above the victim. "It seems this poor boy's heart just gave out."

"That's it? His heart just stopped?"

"As near as I can tell. Come take a look at this." Alexx indicated a point inside the chest cavity of the DB.

Ryan edged closer to peer into the chest cavity. Alexx had pointed to an organ… it must have been an organ. It was puffy and green and exactly where a liver should be. "What the hell is that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Okay. Uh. I'm going to take this worm thing to Valera. You, uh, you could ask Horatio about that strange organ. He's being very… enigmatic about this case."

Alexx gave him a bland look.

"More so than usual."

"I'll see if I can find him."

Ryan picked up the jar with the worm thing in it, and he felt that he should say something else but for the life of him couldn't think of anything.

"If you find anything else, let me know."

"Sure thing, baby."

****

: : :

Ryan ran into Eric in the hallway.

"You asshole!" Ryan hissed.

"W-What?" Eric stuttered out.

"Do you think before you act?!"

"What is this about?"

"When you called me earlier, where were you?" Ryan growled.

"I was… I was in the A/V lab." Eric frowned. "Where are you going with this…?"

"You were in Cooper's lab when you announced that we had sex last night! That three of us had sex last night. Together. When you were in _Cooper's_ lab!"

Eric's eyes widened comically.

"And that's the reason Peters is being so pissy," Ryan declared.

"Why? He jealous or something?"

Ryan glared at Eric, unimpressed.

"He is? He likes Natalia too?"

"No," Ryan said slowly, staring at Eric intently.

"Me?" Eric gasped.

"No," Ryan stated again.

"You?!"

Ryan narrowed his eyes at the incredulity in Eric's voice as well as the small chuckle that accompanied it. And why did he have to be last on the list of possible interests?

"No way, man. That's just your ego speaking."

"No, that's Calleigh speaking."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Now if you excuse me, I have to hand this off to Valera."

****

: : :

"You guys just love giving me presents," Maxine said with a smile. "Is this another hinky alien thing?"

"I hope not. I was wondering if you could match it to the head that came in earlier," Ryan explained.

"I'll see what I can do. Where did you pick this up?"

"DB in a warehouse."

"This was _in_ someone?"

"Yeah."

"You always did know how to treat a girl," she said wryly.

"Not you too," Ryan scoffed.

"What?" Maxine looked up at him with wide eyes.

"You haven't - Never mind."

"Is this about what Boa Vista was saying that what Cooper was saying that Delko was saying was wrong?"

"I - I didn't follow that."

Maxine leaned over the table and whispered conspiritually, "_Did_ you, Delko, and Boa Vista… you know?"

"Let me know when you have the results," Ryan responded stiffly.

****

: : :

Ryan found Eric staring at Horatio through a glass wall. Horatio fiddled with his sunglasses as he talked to the NID agent in a hallway. Agent Barrett looked the epitome federal agent. He was so _plain_, not a distinguishing feature about him. Well, his nose was a little crooked but not by much. And he and Horatio left together.

Ryan and Eric looked to each other and frowned.

"Hey, boys."

Ryan and Eric turned around to the center.

Lieutenant Cadman smiled back at them.

"Lieutenant?" Eric asked in a surprised voice that barely contained his amusement.

"I have direct orders to pick up Colonel Cameron Mitchell," she chirped.

Ryan and Eric turned back to look at each other.

"We, uh, we can't do that," Ryan said, pursing his lips.

"Why not? Do you need it in writing or something? I have that too." She pulled a sheet of paper folded into thirds from her back pocket and waved it around.

Ryan apprehensively plucked it from between her fingers and opened it. "Hey, Delko? Do we take orders from the Air Force?"

"Nope," Eric said, smirking.

The Lieutenant's smile faded. "Boys, this is in the interest of National Security," she said formally and stiffly. Military.

"Eric, Mr. Wolfe, is there a problem?" Ryan barely contained his urge to jump at Horatio's sudden voice. Agent Barrett was directly behind him.

"I'm not sure, sir," Ryan responded, eyebrows twitching in an undecided motion to frown.

"Hey, Malcolm," the Lieutenant said with a small wave.

"Laura," Agent Barrett said with a nod. And Ryan was confused. He had spent his entire day confused, and he was sick of it. It made him irritable… and no amount of release from the night before could change that.

Before Ryan could open his mouth to say something undoubtedly unpleasant, Eric placed a hand on Ryan's shoulder, digging his fingers forcibly between Ryan's trapezius and clavicle. Ryan swallowed unpleasant words and a yelp. He did, however, hiss and glare as he pried Eric's fingers away from his shoulder… with extra force than was merited. He was satisfied when Eric hissed in return, but the feeling was gone as soon as Aaron passed them in the hallway with a scowl.

"Agent Barrett and I will be returning to Lowe," Horatio announced as he fiddled with his sunglasses and gave Ryan a coy look that gave Ryan the impression that Horatio could read his mind. "Ah, Lieutenant Cadman, Colonel Mitchell is waiting for you in booking. Eric, Ryan, please meet us at Lowe."

Ryan was still trying to wrap his head around "Agent Barrett and I" when Mr. Jones walked down the hallway with Captain Harkness and no Doctor. Horatio, Agent Barrett, and Lieutenant Cadman were gone when Mr. Jones and Captain Harkness approached Ryan and Eric.

"I'm terribly sorry," Mr. Jones said. "I'll be draggin' him back to Cardiff."

Caught off guard, Ryan blurted out, "You can't until we catch your murderer." The words sounded weird the moment they left his mouth.

Mr. Jones coolly raised his eyebrows in Captain Harkness's general direction. "You didn't say that you died."

Captain Harkness shrugged. "It wasn't an original death." As if that was an excuse for not pressing charges.

That surprised a laugh out of Eric.

"I found my Doctor. That's what I came for. Thanks for everything, boys," Captain Harkness said with a wink. "Oh, and office romances? It only works if it's with the boss." To accent his words, he goosed Mr. Jones, who rolled his eyes.

"We've discussed scaring locals, sir," Mr. Jones commented dryly.

Captain Harkness shrugged and said goodbye to Ryan and Eric before heading off with Mr. Jones.

"This is becoming too weird," Eric stated.

"This has _surpassed_ too weird," Ryan wailed, gesturing wildly.

Eric raised his eyebrows but didn't address Ryan's statement. "We'd better head back to Lowe."

Ryan rolled his eyes but let Eric led him out with a hand on his shoulder. He waited for the arousal to start. It hit the moment Aaron glared at Eric's hand, which in turn hit Ryan as unexpected. Ryan shrugged Eric's hand off.

****

: : :

They road in silence to Coral Gables until Eric pulled off to the shoulder of Route 1, unfastened his seat belt, and gave Ryan a sloppy blow job that left him clutching at the plush of the car seat beneath him and straining against his seatbelt.

They were back on the road again by the time Ryan caught his breath, which he used to chew out Eric. "What the _hell_? We're still on the clock! In a county car!"

Eric chuckled. "Only you would be so cranky after a blow job."

"Only you would so blatantly press the limitations of the rules!"

Eric smirked.

Ryan sulked until they climbed out of the car at Lowe. He was tenser than he had been before he left the Crime Lab. He felt that Eric was - Ryan didn't know. It was awkward, and he didn't know what was going on between them - or if Natalia even factored into the equation anymore. The confusion of his personal life added to the confusion of his professional life left him running to catch up. And he did not like the anxious feeling that stirred up. Eric only perpetuated that feeling.

Horatio stood with his hands on his hips, looking down to his left with a smirk on his face. "Glad you boys could make it."

Ryan kept himself from glaring at the way Horatio _knew_ exactly what was going on between Ryan and Eric. It was kind of creepy. Really creepy, actually.

"The museum is set to close in five minutes. We expect the kidnappers to arrive shortly after that. Mr. Wolfe, I want you to take the perimeter. Eric, join him, please. We're looking for the girl." Horatio nodded to them and headed inside the museum.

Ryan pursed his lips and shoved his hands onto his hips.

****

: : :

Ryan led Eric to the loading dock and the exit and the typical overhead windows reinforced with chicken wire above the door continuing down the length of the building.

He hoisted himself up on a crate by the door to peer into the grimy window.

"See the girl?" Eric asked.

"No," Ryan scoffed. "You'd think there would be one clean warehouse window in all of Miami."

"I think I have some Windex back in the Hummer," Eric said with a laugh.

"Don't tempt me," Ryan muttered. He looked around for another crate and another window.

"What was that?" Eric asked.

"Nothing." Ryan hopped down from the crate. "Let's see if there's a better place to stake out."

****

: : :

"You don't look Jewish. That would explain why you're cut, though." Ryan blushed. "But you don't have much money." Ryan and Eric had circled the building no less than ten times with no sign of anything to indicate that anything out of the ordinary was happening. They had decided to keep a concealed eye on the loading dock. "Then again the way you keep bugging me about it - "

"Not all Jews are - are misers, Eric," Ryan explained in exasperation. Eric kept asking him obscure things in a bizarre game of twenty questions, but this was by far the strangest. It had actually started out as a question about breakfast that led to a question about bacon and then a question as to why Ryan didn't eat pork. He was impressed that Eric didn't make a lewd comment about Ryan being kosher. "In fact, I think the only religion that you can most accurately associate with having money is Scientology. Most of them are actors and such."

"You have something against Scientologists?"

"No, mostly just against Tom Cruise."

"The tall, dark, and crazy isn't a turn-on for you?" Eric asked with a smirk.

"Is it for you?" Ryan parried.

"Nah." Eric ran the back of his forefinger along the rough contours of Ryan's cheek.

Ryan turned his head away and swatted at Eric's hand. "What is it that you want, Delko?" he grumbled. He wasn't in the mood for mind games, and whatever was going on between him and Eric, whatever push Natalia made the night before - it was too much like psychological warfare. And with all the nonsense that his day had made, Ryan was not going to work on a series of assumptions. He wanted a direct answer from Eric, and he wanted it days ago.

"That's a loaded question."

Ryan growled as his phone went off. "Wolfe," he barked into it.

"Hey now," Calleigh teased, and Ryan could tell that she was smirking. "I have your trace results. The soil is a match to the vic. I put in a good word for you with Aaron. You're going to want to talk to him after shift. I suggested Azul."

Ryan sputtered. Azul was way out of his price range, especially for an awkward conversation with a disgruntled trace tech. "Thanks, Calleigh," he said coolly. "I need to go."

Eric raised an eyebrow at him.

Ryan opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. Something moved in his peripheral vision. His left hand was on his gun, and he headed in the direction of the movement. He could feel Eric behind him and could hear the soft movement of fabric from Eric's pants. Ryan kept his mind in front of him so that he didn't focus his attention on Eric's pants and what was in them.

It wasn't as difficult as he had anticipated. The movement belonged to a pair of twins, dragging a gagged and blindfolded girl between them. A girl who looked like Alexx only younger. University aged, just like Captain Harkness had said. Just like the girl who had thanked him the night before. She was not going willingly, struggling and twisting in the solid grasp of the twins. The twins were middle aged Caucasian males, graying around the temples. They both had creepy Evil Villain goatees. Because that's just what Ryan's day needed: clichéd bad guy twins. All that was missing was the scantily clad women that did the bidding of their masters while said masters twirled their mustaches.

Ryan vaguely heard Eric on his two-way requesting backup.

The twins were bantering back and forth, debating over whether or not to knock the girl out.

"She needs to be awake for this," Twin One said. "The symbiote needs to agree with her mind."

"We can wait for her to wake up," Twin Two said.

"It's best to have this done quickly," Twin One responded.

Ryan had heard enough. He was too frustrated to deal with the clichéd bad guys. There was too much going on in his life, and he was hurdling quickly towards complete brain failure. And Ryan was too fond of his brain to let these kidnappers be the end of it. He vaguely wondered if he could charge these twins with homicide for killing his brain.

Without giving it a second thought, he blocked the twins' entrance to the museum, gun aimed in the general direction of the bad guys.

"Miami-Dade PD," he shouted. "Let go of the girl and hands on your head!"

Eric appeared next to Ryan, his gun aimed at one twin. Ryan aimed his gun at the other.

"You're crazy, Wolfe," Eric said under his breath.

A third twin - triplet - showed up behind the other two. He had a jar in his hand and a crazy-looking gun of some sort in the other.

"Ba'al!" someone shouted.

The triplets turned around to face the voice. "Colonel Mitchell," one of them said. It was Twin Two now Triplet Two. "I was expecting the attractive Samantha, but this is equally as lovely."

"Let her go, Ba'al," the Colonel said, aiming a P-90 at the three and the girl in the middle. That gun was not going to be used if Ryan had anything to say about it. There was no way that gun could be fired without hitting the girl. "And I like to think myself as just as pretty as Carter."

"No," Triplet One said.

"No I'm not pretty or no you won't let the girl go?"

Triplet One increased the force on the girl's arm, causing her to stumble into him.

"You're all surrounded, Ba'al." Ryan recognized the voice of Agent Barrett. "Let the girl go."

Lieutenant Cadman saddled up to Ryan's side that Eric was not covering. "You boys willing to take orders from me?" she asked, her voice low and commanding.

Ryan opened his mouth to argue, but Eric beat him to it. "Tell us what you want." Eric, unlike Ryan had no problem with relinquishing control.

"You take the one to the left of the girl. I'll take the one to the right. And you" - she pointed to Ryan - "take the one with the gun. You need to shoot them twice: once in the head, once in the neck through the spine. Don't check to see if it was a kill shot."

Eric and Ryan nodded. Lieutenant Cadman sounded as if she had dealt with this type of situation before. And seeing as this was the first case the MDPD had dealt with of this type, it was just as well that they see the experts handle the situation first.

"On three," she said.

Ryan couldn't remember the count, but he remembered the shots being fired. The triplets all fell lifelessly, and the girl was dragged down by the weight of two of them. She writhed and panicked.

Without thinking, Ryan ran to her and pulled her out of the mass of dead weight. When she was free from the triplets and men in suits were swarming said triplets, Ryan spoke over and over again, "I got you. I got you. It's okay now. I got you."

He removed her blindfold first, so that she could regain all of her senses. She still struggled with him, but once the blindfold was gone, she stopped struggling and held his gaze defiantly, breathing hard. She had very calculating eyes.

"I'm going to take off your gag now, okay?" Ryan asked.

She nodded vigorously twice.

Ryan carefully removed the gag from her mouth, mindful of her hair. "Are you Martha Jones?" he asked.

"Yes," she rasped out. She cleared her throat and repeated, "Yeah."

"Good," Ryan said with a smile. "I'm Ryan Wolfe with the Miami-Dade PD. We're going to get you back to the Doctor."

"He's okay?" she asked eagerly.

"Yeah, but we need you to go with the paramedics first. To make sure you're okay."

She nodded once. "I understand, Mr. Wolfe." Ryan recognized that she bit back panic to do what she thought was what needed to be done. "Am I really in… Miami?"

Even though it was inappropriate, Ryan couldn't help but laugh at her incredulity and wide-eyed wonder. "Yes. This is Miami. We'll get your statement later, okay?"

He helped her to her feet and handed her off to a newly arrived EMT.

****

: : :

"That was crazy, man," Eric said.

Ryan grunted in response. He was focused on what was going on on the other side of the police tape. He was not accustomed to being on the outside of the tape. The NID and the Air Force had forced all people who did not work for said agencies on the other side of the tape, and no one without security clearance was allowed to cross that tape. And the best part was that they were not allowed to leave the area without signing confidentiality statements from both agencies.

Ryan scowled at the tape and all it stood for.

His scowl deepened when Lieutenant Cadman approached them with a disgustingly perky smile.

"Officer Wolfe," Lieutenant Cadman said. "What you did earlier? Yeah. That reminded me of someone I used to work with. My former CO and a friend of my ex-beau. He pulled crazy heroics like that. He's also trained for dealing with these guys. You're not. You could have been killed or worse."

"But I wasn't," Ryan answered stonily, folding his arms over his chest.

"This time," Eric responded.

Lieutenant Cadman nodded. "Next time leave it to the experts, 'kay, sexy?" And there were the beautiful women - or woman - coming on to him.

Ryan gawked at her as Eric worked his jaw.

Lieutenant Cadman winked at Eric and walked back behind the tape, and Horatio approached Ryan and Eric. The Doctor and Miss Jones lagged behind him.

"Not bad, Wolfe," Horatio said, fiddling with his sunglasses.

The Doctor winced.

"Thanks, H," Ryan said, pinching his lips together, unsure as to where Horatio was going with the conversation.

"They were going to turn her into one of them," Horatio informed them calmly. Ryan wasn't expecting _that_.

"One of the triplets?" Eric asked, very confused about the whole thing. Ryan was just as confused.

"One of the clones," Horatio responded. "The Doctor knows all about him."

"Right. His name is Ba'al." That was all the Doctor said. He bounced on his heels. "Whelp," he continued with a pop of his lips, "Martha and I are going to head out. Thanks for everything, Horatio, boys."

"I'll drive the both of you back to the TARDIS," Horatio offered. "Eric, Wolfe, I'll meet you both back at the lab."

Horatio led the Doctor and Miss Jones away with a hand at the small of their backs.

"Isn't he going to stay to sign those confidentiality papers?" Ryan demanded.

Eric shrugged. "It's H. Maybe he already has."

Ryan huffed.

****

: : :

"Sorry to keep you waiting." The Air Force rep in front of Ryan and Eric was crisp and professional. "I'm Dr. Elizabeth Weir."

Ryan and Eric nodded.

"You both need to sign these papers saying that you will not talk about what happened here and that, on behalf of the government, I will be censoring all reports made about this incident before they are submitted to your superiors." Dr. Weir kinda reminded Ryan of Calleigh when she went all professional and focused on a case. It was kinda hot. Not that Ryan would ever tell Calleigh that. He had enough trouble at work with just the men… and Natalia. Ryan would put money on the notion that Dr. Weir could succeed in the dominance that Natalia had tried.

"Sure thing, ma'am," Ryan agreed readily. He just wanted everything to be over with, and if that meant playing the government's games, so be it.

Eric raised an eyebrow at him. "Since we're signing this," he said with a smirk, "maybe you could tell us everything that went down here." His smirk turned into a charming smile.

Dr. Weir gave Eric an incredulous look. "No." She handed both men identical packets of paper and a pen each.

"Hm," Eric hummed in amusement. "You come prepared."

"Comes with the job," Dr. Weir said dryly. She turned to see Colonel Mitchell approaching them. She raised the volume of her voice slightly. "Although usually it's with another colonel."

"Glad to be of service, Lizzie!" Colonel Mitchell called back.

****

: : :

Ryan stared at his locker, too exhausted to do more than will it open. He must have stared at it for a good fifteen minutes… although he wasn't quite sure.

Calleigh interrupted his lack of thoughts. She placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Hey, are you okay?"

Ryan snapped his brain into focus. "It was just a _really_ weird case," he said softly, pursing his lips.

"It's not everyday the government forces us to sign a confidentiality statement." She opened her locker and started fiddling around with its contents.

"Not just the aliens - " He cut himself off as he stood to open his locker.

"I take it you didn't clear things up with Aaron," she said flatly.

Ryan shook his head.

"Don't let too much time pass before you deal with it," she advised sagely.

Ryan grunted in response, staring into his locker.

"I mean it," she insisted. "This can affect lab dynamics."

"It's not like I've never done that before," he grumbled.

"Hey now," she said with a smile. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

Ryan sighed out his nose, folded his arms across his chest, and turned to face Calleigh.

She smiled at him. "Have you thought about it at all?"

"I've been a little busy. With the aliens," he said dryly.

"Well, what are you going to do?" she wheedled.

"You know," Ryan said thoughtfully. "I'm not really comfortable talking about this with you."

"Well, you should discuss it with someone." She closed her locker and gave Ryan a kiss on his cheek as she left the locker room. "I suggest with Aaron," she called back teasingly. "At Azul!"

Ryan sighed again and resisted the urge to bang his head against his locker door.

"Hey." Ryan jumped at Eric's sudden voice.

"Hey," Ryan responded shakily.

"You want to grab a drink?" Eric offered. "I know I need one."

"I don't know," Ryan sighed out. He needed to stop sighing. It was depressing.

"You probably need a drink."

"I do." Ryan shook his head. "I need to not think more, though."

"If you change your mind, give me a call."

Ryan expected a stray hand on his ass as Eric passed, but Eric only clapped him on the back. Ryan let out a relieved sigh and resumed staring at the interior of his locker. Until Aaron entered the locker room. Aaron whose locker was next to Ryan's.

The hair on the nape of Ryan's neck stood on end with the tension that flooded the room. His mind teetered back and forth between saying something and not. Aaron saved him.

"Calleigh spoke with me," he said conversationally.

Ryan closed his locker and looked at Aaron expectantly. "She said that she would do something to that effect." He pinched the bridge of his nose. He resolved never to let Calleigh out of his sight the next time she smirked.

"I don't think we should have this conversation here." Aaron's expression was soft and hard simultaneously, and Ryan found himself lost again.

"Not Azul," he blurted out.

Aaron laughed, and Ryan felt the tension drain from the room. "I was thinking about the bar down the street."

Ryan nodded dumbly and followed Aaron out of the locker room.

****

: : :

Ryan kept shifting in his chair on the bar's patio. The Miami nightlife was emerging, and people in gaudy clothing flowed passed them. And the tension between the two men had continued to be awkward, and Ryan was lost. He was absolutely horrible with people on a personal level. He always came on too strong and scared everyone away. Except Natalia, Eric, and Aaron. Although it took a while and a nail to the eye for Eric to adjust. Natalia apparently was still interested in Eric and just wanted to enact some fantastical manifestation of the antagonistic air between the two men while asserting her power over them. Eric - he was obviously more interested in Ryan than Natalia had been, which further confused Ryan, and he had yet to figure out what Aaron wanted.

"So," Ryan said inelegantly, drawing out the word to hopefully draw a response from Aaron.

Aaron caught Ryan's eye. "When I started working at the lab, you were this scrawny, awkward teenager. You even had that quaint Boston lisp. Now, good God, now you've fleshed out, bulked up, and I want to taste every inch of you."

Ryan sucked in a shaky breath and felt adrenaline surge from his belly. "That was the most straightforward thing anyone has probably ever said to me."

Aaron raised a curious eyebrow at Ryan's evasion.

Ryan sighed and pursed his lips, shifting in his chair. He then leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. "I'll return the favor: I have no idea what is going on with my life. Between today's case and that rumor you heard, I - I don't know."

Aaron nodded.

"But I do know that I don't want a workplace relationship."

Aaron nodded again. "Starting in the fall, I am teaching chemistry at the University of Miami."

Ryan sat up in his chair, alarmed. "What?!"

"It's a lot less stressful than working in the lab - in relation to politics."

Ryan frowned. "You're bailing because of lab politics?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes. There are too many federal investigations in the lab. I don't want any part of it."

"Does H know your reason?"

"Yes."

Ryan waited a beat, then blurted out, "Are you the mole?"

Aaron stared at him severely. "No. Not the way you're thinking."

"Then in what way?"

"Not with the feds."

Ryan shot him a bland look.

"That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry." Aaron looked properly contrite. Ryan glared.

"Did it have to do with today's case?" Ryan hazarded a guess.

Aaron leveled Ryan with an intense stare but nodded curtly.

"Oh," Ryan said quietly. "And you want out?"

Aaron took two large gulps of his beer.

"No? You're being reassigned?" Ryan asked in astonishment.

Aaron nodded.

"Wow." Ryan leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

Aaron hummed in agreement.

The rest of the night went comfortably. Except for the niggling in the back of Ryan's head that Aaron already knew about the whole alien thing. That perpetuated Ryan's confusion in the scheme of things. Their night ended with Aaron asking Ryan to consider his proposal of tasting every inch.

****

: : :

Eric was waiting in the lobby of Ryan's apartment building.

"Delko," Ryan said sharply at Eric's back.

"Wolfe," Eric responded, spinning around.

"What are you doing here?"

"Can I come up?"

"Eric," Ryan growled.

"Calleigh said - It has to do with Calleigh," he explained in a rush.

"Is she okay? Nothing's wrong, is it?" Ryan asked in a panic.

"Can we discuss this elsewhere?"

Ryan narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Calleigh wasn't hurt or in trouble. If she were, they would be heading to help her.

"Please," Eric stressed.

"Alright," Ryan grumbled, punching the elevator button.

****

: : :

As soon as the door to Ryan's apartment closed behind them, he demanded that Eric tell him everything.

"Calleigh said that I had competition," Eric said smugly as he made himself at home on Ryan's couch.

Ryan growled and threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "You bastard! I thought she was hurt. And you're telling me that she told you about my personal life - as if it were any of your business! And why are you sneaking around behind Boa Vista's back?!"

"Ryan. Sit down," Eric ordered, grabbing the sleeve of Ryan's shirt and pulling him down to the couch. "It's nearly midnight, and you haven't even undone your tie." Eric's fingers make quick work of undoing the half-Windsor and popping the button underneath it. Ryan half-heartedly attempted to bat Eric's hand away.

"This is a bad idea," Ryan pointed out as Eric's hand pushed away Ryan's shirt collar.

"Are you saying no?" Eric asked, brushing the spot by Ryan's ear that the psychic paper had mentioned earlier.

Ryan moaned in response. "Bastard," he breathed out.

"You need to unwind," Eric whispered into Ryan's ear as one of his hands slowly pulled Ryan's shirttails free.

"Already did," Ryan growled. "With Aaron."

Eric drew away as Ryan had expected, but instead of stopping, Eric reached down to cup Ryan through his jeans. "Then is this for me or Aaron?" He squeezed lightly.

Ryan made an embarrassing noise.

"You said that you wanted to dominate," Eric whispered hotly into Ryan's ear. He pulled away and languidly stretched himself out over the couch. Ryan's breath quickened when Eric continued, "I'm letting you."

There was no way that Ryan was going to let that opportunity pass him by. He held Eric down by his biceps and fucked him into the couch.

****

: : :

When Ryan caught his breath, he said, "Okay, let's not do that again."

Eric snickered and smirked up at him. "You're the first one to ever say that to me." He licked the corner of Ryan's mouth. "You didn't enjoy it?"

Ryan snarled and bit down on Eric's earlobe. "I don't think workplace relationships are a good thing."

Eric raised an eyebrow. "Natalia? Aaron?"

"Natalia was unobtainable - still is. I have no idea what's going on with Aaron. And even if I decide to pursue something with Aaron, he won't be working at the lab much longer."

Eric's expression turned serious. "Is he the mole?"

"No," Ryan said with a shake of his head. He crawled off Eric to find something to clean themselves up with and dispose of the condom.

"How do you know?" Eric challenged, sprawling out over the sofa.

"Because he didn't ask about my eye," Ryan snapped back.

Eric chuckled in amusement. "You _are_ always cranky after you come."

"It's the company," Ryan shot back.

Eric sighed and rolled up into a sitting position. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Not until this is resolved." Ryan crossed his arms over his chest, which was not as intimidating as he had aimed for, mostly because his pants were on the other side of the couch.

"What's there to resolve? I'm looking for something that you obviously can't handle."

"See? That's my point!" Ryan cried. "We'd end up killing each other!"

"I don't mind rough sex," Eric added thoughtfully. "In fact, I really enjoyed it." He stretched to expose his stomach muscles. Ryan suspected it was to distract him from whatever point he was making.

"I'm not talking about on a physical level - I mean on a mental and emotional level. It's like were constantly waging psychological war. Which is affecting our work."

"You may have a point," Eric admitted.

Ryan scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Of course I have a point. Now explain to me why you're so quick to discard your relationship with Boa Vista? You've never shown any sort of positive interest in me. Only negative. I know _I've_ never thought about you that way."

"You're very sexy," Eric said with a shrug.

"You're shallow," Ryan grumbled. "If that's all you have to say for yourself, then I guess we've resolved this." He stared coldly down at Eric. "And you can leave."

Eric rose to his feet as he raised his eyebrows in challenge. "Is that so?"

Ryan nodded curtly.

"No way to change your mind?" Eric asked slyly, crowding Ryan's space.

"I'm not saying the sex was bad. I'm saying the idea of pursuing anything is bad. I've also noticed that you failed to give a serious response when I pointed out your lack of pervious interest." Eric opened his mouth to respond, but Ryan breezed on. "That means you aren't looking for anything serious, and I don't have the mental stamina to deal with that right now."

Eric eyed Ryan critically.

"What?!"

"You're naked," Eric stated.

"Yes," Ryan said carefully. "So are you." He tried to think of a way to bring the conversation back from the cusp of surreal.

"Let's continue this conversation with clothes on."

"It's still going to come to the same conclusion, Eric."

"You're right." Eric's face closed off, and he bent down to collect his clothing. "I should leave."

Ryan sighed. "Nothing's been resolved if you're going to leave angry." He rubbed his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. "I'm too tired to discuss this at length. And unlike some of us, I don't have tomorrow off."

"I'll get out of your hair," Eric said resolutely.

Ryan sighed. He was going to regret this, but, "You're tired too. Stay the night."

Eric flashed Ryan a sexy grin.

"Clean up first," Ryan said in a deadpan.

****

: : :

Eric curled around Ryan, mouthing his neck in no specific pattern. It was warm and wet where his mouth was and cold and wet where it had been. Ryan shivered.

"No," Ryan mumbled, shoving a hand between their bodies.

The alarm clock beeped in annoyance. Ryan groaned and dislodged Eric to turn off the alarm clock. He crawled out of bed, and Eric sprawled out over it.

"When're we gonna talk about it?" Eric mumbled sleepily.

"Join me for lunch," Ryan said after a beat.

Eric mumbled something in Russian.

"What was that?" Ryan asked.

"I'll see you then, sexy," Eric said, looking up at Ryan through half-lidded eyes. Eric didn't look so bad himself… if Ryan stopped to think about it.

****

: : :

Unlike the day before, there were no crazy cases. No cases at all. Ryan was stuck in the lab filling out paperwork. He managed to avoid both Calleigh and Aaron. Calleigh was primary on a B and E gone bad, and Aaron had made himself scarce, holing himself up in his lab. It was actually Horatio who cornered Ryan.

"Mr. Wolfe," Horatio said lightly, fingering his sunglasses, passing them back and forth from hand to hand.

Ryan jerked to attention. "Yeah, H?"

Horatio had a serious expression that caused Ryan to frown in response. "Is there…" Horatio paused and looked thoughtful. "Is there a reason for me to look at breaking up the team?"

"Why?" Ryan asked, startled.

"It's lab policy that no two peoples in a romantic involvement should be on the same team."

"What?! No! Why - no, don't answer that."

"I am concerned about your relationship with Eric."

Ryan twitched. "What relationship?"

"The antagonism I've been seeing…" Ryan paled. "It's been replaced with something more constructive, hasn't it?"

"Look, H," Ryan began, unsure as to how to continue without blushing furiously and apologizing for defiling the Hummer.

"You don't need to explain yourself, Ryan." Horatio smiled at him and tipped his head coyly.

"No, H. It's, uh, it's been resolved." Ryan ran his forefinger along his chin nervously. "It won't be a problem."

"Are you aware that Aaron Peters is leaving the lab?" Out of left field much? Horatio knew too much for Ryan's peace of mind.

"What? Oh, yeah. He - he told me. He's not a fed," Ryan offered, answering Horatio's unasked question. "He wasn't concerned about my eye." Just every other part of my anatomy, Ryan didn't say.

"Good. That's good." Horatio trailed off. "How's that paperwork coming?"

"I'm having difficulty. I'm reluctant because I know some government official is going to redact the hell out of my report."

Horatio nodded but didn't say anything else, eventually leaving Ryan to his paperwork.

****

: : :

Eric paced the bottom of the stairs of the Crime Lab when Ryan left for lunch.

"Took you long enough," he accused lightly.

"Someone had to write up the case report," Ryan snorted.

"Glad it wasn't me."

"H said that he wanted your account too."

"I'll just copy yours."

"No such luck. The government already took their big black marker to it. I thought Alexx was going to kill me when I told her that I couldn't explain what happened." Ryan was suddenly self-conscious standing on the front steps exposed to everyone. "Let's go to lunch. Before I'm called back in."

****

: : :

They ended up at a small diner out on the patio. The air was humid to the point where the condensation of Ryan's water glass stained the table cloth. That also meant that both men were sweating.

"You fascinate me," Eric finally admitted.

Ryan set down his fork and leveled Eric with a severe look. "We'd kill each other."

"I know."

"So what do you want?"

"I'm not sure."

"With everything that happened yesterday, I think it's best that we have each other's backs and can think along the same lines out in the field. And no more perverse games of twenty questions."

"How else was I supposed to find out that you were a Red Sox fan?"

"Pay attention. That _is_ your job. Also, when they play the Yankees, I take off early. You've also neglected to talk about Boa Vista."

"I did tell you about Natalia: we agreed not to fool around without someone else in the picture."

"That's not what I meant. Is she - Are you - I mean emotionally."

"Does it matter?" Eric shrugged.

Ryan scoffed. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, it matters."

"I don't know, Wolfe, alright?" Eric bit out defensively.

Ryan felt his anger dissipate and smirked lopsidedly. "Was that so hard to admit?"

Eric snorted. Ryan couldn't tell if it was amusement or anger. "You're right," he said eventually. "We would end up killing each other."

"That wasn't so hard to admit either, now was it?"

Eric's smirk mirrored Ryan's.

****

: : :

"Hey there," Calleigh said with a bright smile upon entering the break room.

Ryan looked up from his paperwork. "Calleigh."

"How was Azul?" she asked sweetly.

Ryan looked back down to his paperwork. "Didn't go," he said curtly. He was still uncomfortable with people taking an interest in his personal life. He was so accustomed to not fitting in, that finally belonging felt more awkward than not belonging. Calleigh's sisterly inquiries and teasing still made Ryan twitchy.

"Where did you go, then?" she pried.

"Don't you have evidence to process?" he asked without looking up again.

"I just dropped some trace off to Aaron." Ryan frowned. Calleigh was smirking that nasty smirk that did not bode well for Ryan's piece of mind.

Ryan made a noncommittal grunt.

"Oh, come on," she teased, leaning onto the table, her breasts at Ryan's eyelevel - if he looked up, which he did.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Put those away!"

"What? These?" She cupped herself.

"That - That is sexual harassment," Ryan choked out.

Calleigh chuckled. "Relax, honey. From what I've heard, that's not something that interests you."

"Doesn't matter if it interests me or not. It's still unwanted. It's like telling me my sister is a sexual being."

"You never mentioned a sister." Calleigh stood up straight. Ryan boggled at how quickly she could change directions.

"I don't have one."

"Oh. I guess I've made up for that, haven't I?"

Ryan gave her a halfhearted smile.

"Does this mean I can set you up on dates?"

"No," Ryan said flatly. "And you're trying that anyway."

"Oh. Right," she drawled, smiling widely. "I just want my li'l brother to be happy."

Ryan snorted.

"And I think that you and Aaron would be - "

"Mr. Wolfe," Horatio interrupted. He stood in the doorway of the break room. "May I speak with you privately?"

Calleigh smiled widely again. "I'll leave you boys to it. Ryan, I'll tell Aaron you say hi."

Before Ryan could object, Calleigh was halfway down the hallway.

He sighed. "Yeah, H?"

"Let's… let's talk in my office." Because that wasn't ominous.

****

: : :

Ryan tried not to twitch as he sat across from Horatio. Ryan was mostly succeeding.

"I've been meaning to speak with you about the Doctor," Horatio finally said.

Ryan swiped his thumb over the tip of his nose. "Uh, we're not supposed to discuss the case."

"We are not to discuss the Goa'uld. We _are_ at liberty to discuss the Doctor." So, Horatio knew about the goold… which would have been useful to know thirty-six hours ago.

"Okay," Ryan said.

"What do you know about the Doctor?"

"What - what do you mean?" Ryan asked, trying to hide his suspicion. He figured it was a bad idea to show suspicion of his boss in front of his boss.

"The Doctor. What do you know about him?"

"Uh. He - he was very strange," Ryan stated. He shifted in his seat, unsure what exactly Horatio wanted him to say. "Very unique. It was like he had this switch from serious to ecstatic instantly. Uh." He swiped a fingernail across his eyebrow, watching Horatio for any sort of reaction. There was none. "He, uh… What are you looking for, H? What do you want me to say?"

"How did you see the Doctor's TARDIS?" Horatio asked, cocking his head to the side.

So that's what this was about. "I was looking for something that would be out of place at a crime scene. That's what I told the Doctor."

"I see. That was a very clever thing to do."

Ryan frowned. He couldn't tell if Horatio was patronizing him or not. "The Doctor said something similar. Although, a large blue box is hard to miss."

"Ryan," Horatio said softly. "The TARDIS is made so that eyes are drawn away from it."

"Really?" Ryan pressed, hoping that Horatio would actually explain something for once.

"Yes. It is. You went inside to find the Doctor, didn't you?"

Ryan nodded slowly before saying, "I did. It's in my report. Probably redacted."

"So you saw the inside of the TARDIS?"

"Yes, sir," Ryan answered, a little wary of Horatio's eagerness. "It was… unexpected." He left out the part where he dragged Eric inside too. He didn't think that would help this conversation with Horatio.

"Bigger on the inside," Horatio said with a chuckle that left Ryan nonplussed.

"Yeah." Ryan shifted uneasily again. "What - what was his connection to that Torchwood?"

"The Doctor is Torchwood's number one enemy. The reason for its establishment."

Ryan nodded, processing it slowly, filing it with the rest of the evidence he processed the day before. "But Captain Harkness talked with the Doctor and left," he pointed out.

"Yes. Captain Harkness is… different. The Doctor spoke of him once but never by name." Horatio looked off to the left of Ryan's shoulder.

"What was it like?" Ryan asked quietly. "Traveling with him."

"Indescribable," Horatio said. "Have you come closer to determining who the mole in the lab is?"

Ryan swore that some time soon he was going to suffer whiplash from Horatio's change in subjects. "No, sir. Aaron Peters is off the list, though." He really wanted to ask more about the Doctor, but the opportunity was not presenting itself. Mostly Ryan wanted to know how Horatio was able to get his hands on another sonic screwdriver, but he was afraid that the answer might be "timey whimey" and that was just not fair.

"I see. Keep up the good work, Wolfe."

Ryan pressed his lips together before saying, "Thanks, H."

****

: : :

Calleigh caught up to Ryan in the locker room again.

"Aaron told me all about your date last night."

Ryan raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms to lean against his locker. "All about our date? We didn't have a date."

"Was it a business proposal then?"

Ryan flushed at the word "proposal."

"Oh, I see," she said innocently.

"Stop it," Ryan muttered.

"Have you heard the newest rumor circulating the lab today?" she asked, sitting down at the bench in front of him.

Ryan uncrossed his arms. "No," he said carefully.

"You're going to want to sit down," she said.

Ryan rolled his eyes but sat down next to her on the bench.

"Boa Vista forced you and Eric to have sex while she watched."

Ryan blinked a few times. Since when did the rumor mill actually generate something true? "Where did that rumor come from?"

Calleigh shrugged. "Doesn't matter. What does matter is that - "

"You told Eric about Aaron," Ryan interrupted.

"Really?" She peered at him with interest.

Ryan tore his gaze away from the vents at the top of his locker and stared at her blandly.

"So you saw him between the end of shift yesterday and now?" Ryan was completely uncomfortable with the fact that Calleigh was a little too good at her job and could easily fill in the gaps of his story.

"Yes. I did," Ryan admitted. There was obviously no point in denying it. "Was there any particular reason you brought that up with him?"

"No need to be snippy. Was there any truth to this newest rumor?"

"I asked first," Ryan shot back childishly.

"I figured that you needed some motivation," she stated plainly.

"That rumor is the truest thing I've ever heard through the rumor mill, which means that's probably not where you got it."

Calleigh evaluated Ryan for a moment before answering. "Boa Vista was bragging about the power of her breasts," she said with a wrinkle of her nose.

"They are right there," Ryan pointed out. "They're very hard to miss."

"I always thought you were an ass man," Calleigh teased, knocking Ryan's shoulder with her knuckles. "You're turning my whole world upside down."

"I am an ass man," Ryan agreed. "But her breasts are - "

Someone cleared his throat behind them. Ryan jumped.

Calleigh swiveled on the bench to face the door. "Oh, hey, Aaron. Are you here to pick Ryan up for your date?"

"Date?" Ryan sputtered. "I never said - I'm not free tonight. I have things to do!" he protested.

"Right. Aaron." She smirked and stood up patting him on the shoulder. "You kids have fun tonight!" she called as she left them alone in the locker room.

Ryan opened his mouth to protest, decided that there really wasn't a point, and closed it again.

"Sorry about that," Aaron said with a faint blush even as he tried to look dignified.

Ryan pursed his lips. "I do have plans tonight."

Aaron nodded. "Horatio mentioned that you were asking after Torchwood."

Ryan's attention snapped to Aaron's face, and he frowned. "I was," he answered, suspicious of where Aaron was going.

"I'll tell you as much as I can over dinner. C'mon." He placed a hand on Ryan's forearm and dragged his fingers down to Ryan's own. The soft hiss of skin against skin made Ryan shiver.

"Okay," he vaguely heard himself say. He could always reschedule his dentist appointment.

****

: : :

Lying in bed with Aaron was a lot different than lying in bed with Eric. Eric had constantly been in motion, where as Aaron could wind down. It was almost as if he could read Ryan's mind, which made him paranoid, because maybe Aaron _could_ read his mind. Ryan had already seen aliens, how much further was mindreading?

"Torchwood is the British version of what my bosses do," Aaron explained, stretching in Ryan's arms. He buried his face in the crook of Ryan's shoulder, kissing his neck briefly before continuing. "They were founded for very different reasons. I'm not at liberty to discuss those reasons."

Ryan hummed in encouragement for Aaron to continue. Continue talking or continue to bury his face in Ryan's body. Whichever. Ryan was still reeling that the man who was snuggling (no other word for it) in his arms was the same man who was cold and detached while in the lab.

"H mentioned the Doctor."

"Right," Aaron agreed.

"And the Doctor doesn't have anything to do with the star gate," Ryan concluded.

"I can't confirm or deny that statement," Aaron said ruefully.

At least Ryan knew what type of secrets were being kept from him before he entered a relationship this time around. It was then he knew that he was doomed: he was calling what had happened between him and Aaron a relationship. Ryan would deal with that in the morning. He would also love to see Eric's face when he found out, but he really didn't want to deal with Calleigh's gloating. He'd tell them later, when he was sure that there actually was a relationship going on.

****

: : :

"Aaron and I are dating," Ryan announced weeks later to the entire trace lab. Okay, it was just Eric.

Eric raised his eyebrows but otherwise did not look up from the microscope he was looking through.

"I felt that you should know," Ryan said with a shrug.

Eric finally looked up from the microscope. "And why is that?"

"Because we had that thing and - " Ryan stopped and glared when Eric started to smirk. "You really are a bastard," he groused.

"Maybe. Is he better than me?"

Ryan glowered spectacularly. "You ask that again and I'm going to tell Calleigh that you can barely get it up without a little blue pill. Don't think I haven't noticed you panting after her."

Eric looked severely traumatized. "Viagra?! That is such a low blow, and you would never tell Calleigh that."

"Tell me what?" Calleigh asked, walking into the lab.

Both men looked as if they had already been properly chastised and both declined to answer.

"I see," she said thoughtfully. "Boy things. Do you have the trace identified yet?"

"Almost," Ryan answered. "It's running through the mass spec now."

"I'm glad you two boys are getting along now. Find me when it's done. I'll be in ballistics," Calleigh said, leaving the lab.

"Don't stare at her ass," Ryan muttered as he placed two fingers under Eric's chin to manually shut his mouth.

"Oh, like you don't stare at mine," Eric said as soon as he recovered.

"I don't," Ryan grumbled.

"Not once?" Eric wheedled, looking into the microscope again as Ryan attended to the mass spec. "You've never thought to yourself, 'hey! I've been there'?"

Ryan flushed and sputtered.

"Yeah, I thought so."

"Don't flatter yourself."

****

: : :

End.

 

**Author's End Note**: I loved the idea of Companion H. Also, I am _not_ a Boston fan. Nor am I a Yankees fan. I'm a bad Nutmeger for not choosing sides. Ryan, however, at least went to school in Boston; therefore, it is relatively safe to assume that he would be a Sox fan. They're fierce in B-town.

Also, if anyone finds an error in my chemistry, please let me know. I almost failed O-Chem, and even _that_ was a while ago. *sigh* I can barely remember the difference between an SN1 and SN2 reaction. *wails*

And Martha Jones is made of awesome.

This is not the best fic I've ever written, but it's pretty close to the crackiest.


End file.
